Naples
6 Septr 1831
My dear Henry
Altho nobody ever writes to me, yet I cannot help from time to time troubling my correspondents, who are anything but respondents now, & particularly you to know if you have received certain seeds I sent you from Rome months ago. I wonder that you while this hubb is going on do not retire to the Alps or Pyrenees or any mountains you have not explored & enjoy yourself, far from the hum(bug) of men. Among Botanical novelties I can only mention Heliotropium Grass Bocconi, Lonicera catrescens, two of Gussone’s <1> pretty plants from Sicily, & Myosotis Armeniaca or Lappula echinophora a very distinct species which one wanted in Myosotis. Tell me how Lacock goes on this summer & how your neighbour Pusey <2> supports the triumphant progress of reform. I wonder he has not spoken yet upon it. I wish it was over, as the house of Lords is so idle it will not help forward the other business & we want a new poorlaw before this winter begins. I hope it will be easier to get into Parlt when the Bill <3> is past – I think the little ou one has heard new, or clever, or public printed, in this eventful year, is a good sign that the Collective wisdom of Parlt collects but a small portion of that of the nation. The papers talk of an able pamphlet on Poland by Mr Gore Montague, <4> do you know anything of it, or him. I should like to have it as I want to get together all I can on the subject but when I should receive it, it is hard to tell for we have a rigorous anti choleric quarantine, & we never receive a courier. to be sure it is most provoking to be kept during the whole of such a year at this, the transactions of which will probably be the basis of our foreign relations for years to come, at such an out of the way place as Naples – where far from being employed in the negociations that have gone on, one remains in utter ignorance of all that has been done, & still less can one guess at the causes which have influenced the policy pursued.
Henry F. Talbot Esq
31 Sackville Street
Notes:
1. Giovanni Gussone (1787–1831).
2. Phillip Pusey (1799–1855), agriculturalist.
3. The parliamentary reform bill.
4. Or Montague-Gore, MP for Devizes. [See Doc. No: 02805].