Burley <1>
October 17th
My Dear Henry
I am very sorry to hear it will be so long before Mr Hooker <2> will have a vacancy for your Uncle John <3>. I wish you would write oftener, as I do not like being more than a week befo without hearing from you. We went yesterday to Belvoir Castle, the Duke of Rutland's <4>. It is an irregular Gothic Castle, on the top of a steep sugarloaf hill, in the middle of a wide plain. Pray keep some of your beautiful opaque pebbles & Cornelians for me. Are they as pretty as Abbotsbury pebbles? That description of Dulcinée <5> is very diverting from its pompous exaggerat[ion]<6> Mr Feilding <7> came here last Thursday from Cumberland, He & Lord Winchilsea <8> desire their love to you.
I am your affte
E T Feilding
You may enclose you next to Lord Winchilsea, Burley Stamford -
Stamford Octr Eighteenth Per Winchilsea
Mr Hy Talbot
at the Revd Dr Hooker's
Rotting Dean <9>
Brighton
Burley Oct 17. 1810 <10>
Notes:
1. Burley, Stamford.
2. Rev. Thomas Redman Hooker (1762-1838), WHFT's tutor at Rottingdean and a most interesting character. His career prospects were seemingly cut short when his father lost his fortune to an industrial accident. Hooker became the private secretary to the Duke of Dorset, learned French, took Holy Orders and through the Duke's influence established an influential school. His pupils included the nephews of the Duke of Wellington and of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was also active in the local smuggling ring. See Arthur R. Ankers, revised by Michael Smith, Sussex Cavalcade (Sevenoaks: Hawthorns Publications, Ltd., 1992), pp. 97-100.
3. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803-1859), MP.
4. John Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland (1778-1857), owner of Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, England.
5. Madame Dulcinée du Toboso, fictional character used in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quichotte de la Manche. [See Doc. No: 00518].
6. Written off the edge of page.
7. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
8. George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea and 4th Earl of Nottingham (1752-1826).
9. Rottingdean, East Sussex, 4 mi SE of Brighton: WHFT attended school there from 1808-1811.
10. Written in another hand at the back of address panel.