Edinburgh
8 November 1829
My Dear Horatia
I want you & Caroline <1> to compose an air for these words – I send them to amuse you, for I am afraid you must be ennuyée <2> in the country, away from the gaieties of this splendid metropolis.
You were to have come here on Sunday the 31st and on that day I expected you: you will be ten or eleven days after the time, but that is a trifle. I can’t enclose this letter to Lord H. <3> as I don’t know whether he is a representative Peer, but I hope at this short distance a double letter won’t be ruinous.
Improve some of the lines that are very lame.
Your affte brother
Henry
Miss H. Feilding
at the Earl of Hopetoun’s
Hopetoun House
South Queensferry
Notes:
1. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
2. Bored.
3. John Hope, 5th Earl of Hopetoun (1803–1843).