46 Albemarle St <1>
June 18th
My dear Henry
How does your canvas prosper? I like your address very much & hope that success may crown your efforts – I think of nothing now but elections, for I suppose you have already heard that Ld V. <2> means to stand for the Eastern division of Cornwall He is much better & we mean to leave London Saturday – we shall travel very leisurely & probably stop a day or two at Southampton, or Lyndhurst, or any place we fancy on the road – The country must be charming now – pray find a leisure moment to visit my garden, & tell me most particularly if the standard rosa odorata & the climbing Rosa banksia are in flower – Fitzsimmons <3> sent me a most lovely specimen of the Boursault rose which grows on my Robinson Crusoe <4> arbour – I hope you approve of our plan de route, <5> through the New forest [sic] , & perhaps we may take a trip to Cowes & see Aunt Harriot <6> – I wish very much you may be able to come & see us at Mt Edgcumbe <7>
Addio caro fratello <8> – is not this a beautiful Ixia? I got a large nosegay of them at Covent Garden for sixpence –
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
Notes:
1. WHFT lived at this London address, just down the street from the Royal Institution, for half of April and the whole of May, 1833.
2. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
3. Cornelius Fitzsimmons, Scottish gardener at Lacock Abbey.
4. Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe (1660–1731), a novel based on the adventures of Alexander Selkirk (1676–1721), and his friend Man Friday, a native of the South Pacific island, Juan Fernandez.
5. Planned route.
6. Lady Harriet Frampton, née Fox Strangways (d. 1844) .
7. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe
8. Goodbye dear brother.