Royal Institution <1>
15. Aug. 1836
My dear Sir
My absence from town left me in ignorance of your kind letter <2> until now for which I have to express my great regret at the same time that I thank you sincerely for your kindness But I am cut off from Bristol <3> & all pleasure connected with it by illness in the knee joint which renders me very weak & lame and will I fear disable me for many months though under the hands of Sir Benj Brodie. <4> Even at home it almost entirely prevents my working
Again thanking you for your kindness I remain My dear Sir Your Obliged
M Faraday
&c &c &c
H. F. Talbot Esqr
&c &c &c
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Free
Notes:
1. Royal Institution, London.
2. Letter not located.
3. WHFT invited a number of savants to stay at Lacock Abbey before the 1836 meeting of British Association for the Advancement of Science. Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), Scottish scientist & journalist, Prof Charles Babbage (1792-1871), mathematician & inventor, Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), scientist, Dr Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), scientific writer, Rev William Whewell (1794-1866), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor and natural philosopher and Sir William Snow Harris (1791-1867), scientist assembled at Lacock Abbey 16-17 August, leaving at various times for the meeting, which began 22 August.
4. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783-1862), surgeon.