Harrow <1>
October 1st 1814
My dear Mr Feilding,
I have followed your route on Smith's English Atlas, <2> a most beautiful work, & found every place but Greetham.<3> - I think you went a most winding road indeed, & very often went six or seven miles out of the way. There is a great difference between the way you spell the places, & that in which the map does: for instance what you spell Sizergh, the map spells Syzerth: Winder mere - Winander Mere, &c &c. which caused a little difficulty in finding them out. I am much obliged to you for your descriptions, which have amused me very much. I do not want any money. M.P. <4> did forward my letters from Sackville St <5> - I like being a Monitor, very well for some things, though not so much for others. Kit <6> seems very happy here, & gets on very well in his studies. He is very well, & so am I. - He cannot get his any study, so I have given him a key to mine, by which he gets in whenever he likes; - He has a mug of milk, & a roll for breakfast; & an equivalent of bread & butter for supper; which he eats in my study, which is a great deal more comfortable than eating it about the street, or yard, as some of the little boys do. We are planning together, that he shall buy some teathings [sic] & tea & sugar, & have tea in my study morning & evening: only it is very disagreeable to me, to leave my study open, for the maid to wash up the teathings; it is disagreeable because I have never been accustomed to do so. He tells me sometimes that he has not had enough breakfast, or dinner, by which I infer that his appetite is become truly Harrovian; & I intend to order some mutton chops for us at the shops, lest he should appease his hunger with queen cakes. -
I remain Yrs Afftely
Henry Talbot.
Captn Feilding RN
Sir J. Copley's <7>
Sprotborough
Doncaster
Yorkshire
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Charles Smith (1803-1862), map Publisher, Smith's English Atlas (London: 1804).
3. Greetham, Rutland, was north of Burley, just before joining the Great North Road.
4. A servant of the time named Mary Prior.
5. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
6. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT's Welsh cousin.
7. Captain Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Baronet (1769-1838),of Sprotborough Hall.