[The letter is in the BL and its envelope is in the NMeM.]
London
Decr 19th
Dear Talbot
By the next waggon you will receive a box of old painted glass <1> of I believe pretty good quality – of which I beg your acceptance in the hope that you will find some corner it will suit at Laycock. I procured it some time ago from an old church at Beauvais thinking it might answer for my chapel at Bowood <2> but could not get enough – besides which it will find itself much more at home in an abbey –
yours ever truly
Lansdowne
[envelope:]
London December nineteenth 1828
H. Fox Talbot
Esq
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. WHFT had visited Beauvais in 1816 and had admired the glass there - see Doc. No: 00693. For a listing of these pieces, see Doc. No: 01779. It is likely that one of these pieces was later used by WHFT to make photogenic drawings. Several of these photographs are in the J Paul Getty Museum, one is in the Russian Academy of Sciences and one is in a private collection. Schaaf nos. 2265, 2266, 2267, 2268, 2269, 2270. He later gave some to his old tutor, Dr George Butler, and it still survives in Butler's church of St Mary the Virgin in Gayton, Northamptonshire. See see Doc. No: 01951 and Doc. No: 01959.
2. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.