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Document number: 6251
Date: 11 Jul 1849
Recipient: GAISFORD Henrietta Horatia Maria, née Feilding
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 2nd May 2012

Lacock
July 11/49

My Dear Hora

We have shelves vacant that would hold 200 folios and quartos, and 100 octavos, in the Stone gallery – More might easily be constructed. I don’t think it would be a good plan for you to remove a portion only of the books from London.

I am surprised at the price you obtained for your wine, for I thought it had been almost passé.

We had Dr Watson <1> here yesterday from Bath to see us alL and we drove him back to Corsham <2> Station in the Evening in an open carriage, not returning home till ten o’clock, very pleasant, but a feat which has rather tired C. and Mlle <3> who is hardly strong enough to encounter the fresh evening breeze – Dr Watson has advised a removal to Tunbridge Wells for three months. We have now been at home two Entire years, with a trifling exception. I am putting plants into my new conservatory – Would you like to visit Henderson’s <4> in Pine Apple Place and choose half a dozen of your own favourites to be added to the collection? In that case you should select the identical specimens you wish for, which should be vigorous young plants, and desire them to be sent here per railway to Chippm station with advice per post at the same time. They must not require stove heat, and they may be twiners or not.

Your afft
Henry

The Times <5> gives an account of the prodigious success of Madme Sontag, <6> while the National <7> received this morning says that “la nouvelle” <8> of her being likely to reappear on the London stage is “tout à fait controuvée”. <9> I think the National had better change his “own correspondent” at London. What will be the end of the Roman affair? Some say that Pius IX <10> will abdicate, having first excommunicated the French, but that evidently merits confirmation. If any body can make out the series of events which embellish the Hungarian war, <11> I envy them their penetration –

Notes:

1. See Doc. No: 06562.

2. Corsham Court, Wiltshire, 3 mi NW of Lacock: seat of Ld Methuen.

3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife and Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].

4. John Andrew Henderson & Company, florists, London.

5. The Times (London).

6. Gertrud Walpurgis Sonntag, ‘Henriette Sontag’, Countess Rossi (1805–1854), German operatic and concert soprano. [See Doc. No: 01732].

7. Probably the newspaper Le National. [See Doc. No: 06417].

8. The news.

9. Completely imagined.

10. Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti (1792–1878), Pope Pius IX from 1846 to 1878. He returned to Rome on 12th April 1850, having previously fled to Gaeta in the kingdom of Naples to prevent revolution from breaking out in Rome. He had been faced with liberal and nationalist demands that he found difficult to grant. In 1849 a short-lived Roman Republic was established but the Pope issued a formal appeal to the rulers of France, Austria, Spain, and Naples for assistance. When the Pope was restored he was determined to exercise his temporal power in the Papal States without any restrictions.

11. The Hungarian War of Independence, in which Hungary sought separation from Austria – the independence of the state of Hungary from the Hapsburg Empire. Hungary was declared an independent state in April 1849.

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