Malvern 7th. June. 1812
My Dear Henry
I wish you to continue to write to me as often as you have done lately, as it is a great pleasure to me to receive your Letters, & if I am long without hearing from you it makes me nervous, particularly since you have begun swimming, as I fear your staying too long in the water & catching cold, which you would not wonder at my thinking of, if you knew all the trouble & anxiety I had to rear your infancy & bring you to what you are.
I do not suppose your good natured Smith is much of a Chemist, & I wonder he is not afraid of such explosions. The Nitre, Sulphur & Potash must make a stronger sort of Gunpowder. Do you not sometimes rather surprize him?
I long for the holidays more than ever I did before, it is not much more than six weeks now. As you will find your Cousins here I hope you will be very well entertained while you are at home.
Mary Prior has been very ill, she had last night nine Leeches on her head at once. I believe I shall send her to Cheltenham to drink the Waters.
Have you given any more Feasts? Were the Speech Days agreeable on the whole to you? & did anybody come to them that you knew?
You must have a poor opinion of my peripatetic faculties to think I could not walk 3/4 of a mile, or get up the ascent from Duckpuddle. I am delighted that you are become such a Spartan as to despise a soft bed.
I have read great part of Lucian but not Micyllus & Alutrigon[?] & shall like very much you should translate it to me.<1> I have been sowing more Lupins Convolulous & Candy Tuft against you came, the Mignettes & Nasturiums shew their noses & the sweet Peas are five inches high. I have planted some hops & one has already risen 4 feet & grows à une d'oeil. I want it to wind up a Poplar. I wish when you have time you would write to me a little bit of French. I do not like you to lose ground which you must if it is never kept up. I forget whether you know Car & Hor are going to have a Governess
God bless you My Dearest
Answer my questions. Is it not curious that tho' Perceval has been dead a month no new ministry is formed?
Do you ever see a Newspaper?
[address panel:]
W. H. F. Talbot Ere.
Revd. Dr. Butler's
Harrow
Middlesex
[On verso of address panel, in another hand:]
Malvern June 7. 1812
[illegible deletion]
Notes:
1. Lucian of Samosota (AD125-180), Greek satirist and Assyrian rhetortician; Jacob Lupius (1503-1558), German renaissance humanist.