Villa Gallo Oct 7
Dear Henry
Your letter does not say when you are going to leave Munich so I venture to direct this to you there. You perhaps remember the innkeeper at the Tab[l]e Ronde at Vienne <1> telling us of an English family having staid there 2 or 3 months & our being very incredulous, it was to prove them that they did not know all the curiosities of the country that I begged for the inscription. I gathered & attempted to dry every flower I saw in Sicily & you shall see the bad success I have had from knowing nothing about it I was obliged to change the paper very often, as notwithstanding the heat of the weather there came a sort of damp on the flowers.
I am much indebted to you for your news of Williams <2> being in England as he never writes by any chance I suppose he has some plan in view of joining some other embassy as there are changes without end going on. Hill is coming here.
I live in the top of the tower so you can imagine the lovely view I have on both sides.
The rains are so violent here at present that I believe all the seeds are drowned, for the last ten days we have had nothing but rain thunder &c. I was asking Sir W. Gell <3> the other day about Pompeii he promised me a good many of the sort of scribbled inscriptions you mentioned <4> when the weather is more settled I shall move about more, we live at present the most retired life never going out of grounds except for expeditions –
Your affec
J. Fox Strangways –
[Address panel:]
A Monsieur
Monsieur Talbot
München
Allemagne
aux soins de Mr Le Noble <5>
rue St Honoré
No 343
à Paris.
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 01202.
2. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat
3. Sir William Gell (1777–1836), antiquarian, who lived in Rome and Naples. His most noted publication was the two volume Pompeiana: the topography, edifices and ornaments of Pompeii, the Result of Excavations Since 1819 (London, 1832), which was illustrated with camera lucida drawings.
4. Probably the ‘commission’ mentioned in Doc. No: 01202.
5. Readdressed in another hand.