My dear Henry
I hope my Little god daughter <1> is well & that she conducted herself becomingly at the ceremony of her Xtening – let me hear of you at Birmingham if I do not see you there – I set off tomorrow & shall read Symond’s “Etudes sur les peuples libres,” <2> in my way to the Chartists, that I may know how to interpret a popular movement –
I enclose an ornithogalum which is new to me chloroleuceum – from Chili and a yellow gentleman from Mexico which Lindly <3> calls Echindia I think he coined the term because it was too much trouble to determine the genus.
Yrs very Truly
C Lemon
Carclew <4>
Aug 20
[envelope:]
Henry Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abby
Chippenham
Wilts-
Post Office
Birmingham<5>
Notes:
1. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
2. Jean Charles Leonard Simonde, Études sur les constitutions des peuples libres (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz, 1836).
3. Probably a misspelling for Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
4. Carclew, Cornwall, 3 mi N of Penryn: seat of Sir Charles Lemon.
5. WHFT was attending the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He presented his first major exhibition of photogenic drawings there and commented on the just-released techanical details of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre's process. WHFT's 93 specimens of negatives and positives were listed in a pamphlet, A Brief Description of the Photogenic Drawings Exhibited at the Meeting of the British Association, at Birmingham, in August, 1839, by H. F. Talbot, Esq..