My dear Henry
It is more that I do not like to let the week go by without a letter going to you, than that I have any thing interesting or amusing to tell you that I write. We go on just the same - your Mother <1> I am sorry to say still uncomfortably plagued with her cold & Tooth ache though the latter is at last conquered - our gayeties are all put a stop to by the, I should have supposed joyful Event, of the death of the ci-devant <2> King <3> - one being in the opinion of most people & certainly of the Genoese quite sufficient. indeed I fancy they could make up their minds to being without any, but of that, poor people they have little chance. & we are all to mourn & neither dance or sing till it pleases the Governor to sound to fiddles again.
We had an event yesterday in the arrival of a very gentlemanlike young man a Mr Dennison with strong letters of recommendation from Ward & Fazakerly <4> he is on his way from Rome to Nice to pick up Sandon <5> & proceed together to the meeting of Parliament They are both on the Government <6> side, but I could not but be much struck with the moderate & indeed liberal language that he held as indeed I was last year with Sandon so unlike that of government young men some Time since - This is good for the Country but it destroys all hope of the Whigs ever coming in or indeed if the acts of Ministers continue changing as they have done, of their remaining Whigs & if their opposition continues steady when measures change - they will find themselves at last opposing liberal principles - Rome seems to contain many very agreeable people this winter, & some I should so much like to have met, that I regret for the first Time that it was impossible for us to go there - I am much out of spirits about the House which Richard <7> has chose to let for 80£ to Easter, & destroy all chance therefore of my getting 300 for the Season upon which all my calculation was made - There is a chance but it is so small as to be beyond even your algebraic powers of devising of its letting after Easter - To my utter surprise yesterday who should I meet in the streets but Lady Westmoreland, <8> having been here 3 days & already fixed in Ld Byrons <9> House - that is out of the Town, & we are in, so we shall not see more of her than we like & I am therefore glad she is come. -
I am consoled for your letters being short & far between by feeling that it is occasioned by your being happy & amused
God ever bless you my dearest
C.F.
15 Jany
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
Inghilterra
31 Sackville St
(or No 2)
London
C.F.
Notes:
1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773-1846), WHFT's mother.
2. Previous.
3. Victor Emmanuel I, Duke of Aosta, Duke of Savoy (1759-1824), became King of Sardinia (1802-1821) on his brother Charles Emmanuel IV's abdication. He died on 10 January 1824, just days before this letter was written.
4. John William Ward, 1st Earl Dudley (d. 1833) and John Nicholas Fazakerley (1787-1852), MP.
5. Sir Dudley Ryder, Earl of Harrowby & Viscount Sandon (1762-1847), MP for Tiverton (1819-1831).
6. Tory Government led by Lord Robert Banks Jenkinson Liverpool, Prime Minister (1812-1827).
7. Richard, a servant.
8. Jane Saunders, Lady Westmorland (d. 1857).
9. George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), poet.