Harrow <1>
Oct. 10th 1814
My dear Mamma,
Tell me how you found out that it was the Geranium pratense. I am glad that I guessed right. The Sedum Telephium is quite wild at Penrice, <2> & not uncommon; I first observed it on Prospect Rock. <3> The Botanical name of the Tyger Lily <4> is Ferrania Tigridia. - Cobea scandens. - Kit <5> & I slept in the same room at Penrice, in one of the new ones. Lancashire Asphodel grows pretty plentifully on Cefn Bryn, <6> & at this season of the year looks very pretty with its pointed orange seedvessels - I wish you would tell me Mr Satterthwaite's <7> manner of drying plants. I think you go to places with the oddest names I ever heard. - The weather is very cold & serene; - I have just begun over again the routine of lessons, with which I commenced in the Shell <8> in April 1812. I hardly remember a word of them. They are the Idylls of Theocritus, <9> in the Doric dialect of Greek, which was spoken in Sicily. They are the most mellifluous verses I ever read. I shall have to speak a declamation up in school, soon upon the following subject: whether Sparta or Athens was most calculated to produce Great men. - Write me your opinion - I had some mutton chops every day (six) last week, with Kit, & another boy, in company with potatoes & beer: the bill for which is nineteen shillings - Is not that very dear? I have [illegible deletion] not had any more, until I hear from you on the subject - Is Mr F. <10> gone with you to Nocton? <11>
Your Affte Son
W H F Talbot
Lady Elis: Feilding
Nocton
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811-1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
3. Prospect Rock, Northampton.
4. See Doc. No: 00614.
5. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT's Welsh cousin.
6. Cefn Bryn, Swansea.
7. Dr James Satterthwaite (1773-1827), Clergyman, DD and Chaplain to George III in 1814; Rector of Lowther, Westmorland 1813-1827. He was at Cottesmore through his connection with the Earl of Lonsdale and the Lowther family who presented him to various livings including Lowther rectory. See also Doc. No: 00610; Doc. No: 00749; Doc. No: 00760.
8. See Doc. No: 00560.
9. Theocritus ( ca.310-250BC), poet, was the last one to write in the Dorian dialect.
10. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
11. Nocton, Lincolnshire, where the Ellys family lived in Nocton Hall.