Naples
23 Nov.
My dear Henry
It is only lately I have received your letter from Abbotsbury <1> of Aug. 5. giving a good account of Capparis ovata &c – You should not always contrive to be there at the same season, April or March would be a very good time for your next visit – to see the Spring bulbs. Your Cynanchum acutum I take to be in the style of Periploca græca. I recommend Bignonia crucigera & capreolata – grandiflora I fear would not suit the climate of Lacock – it is the finest creeper I know. Pray try in the Nurseries to get Iris pumila v. pallida – it is a pretty variety to mix with the blue. I hope you have made acquaintance with the Kilmington <2> garden in your way from Lacock – I had waited so long for a letter from you that I was very near trying to draw lines from Caroline <3> & Horatia <4> when your letter came. Let me know if you receive a small box of Sicilian bulbs from me safe – & soon. You should have it by this time. I have written to desire you should have My Flora Sicula <5> from Ab. as I find I want another here – & I know not when I might have an opportunity of sending one. I am now on the point of despatching a box of seeds to Sir C. Lemon, <6> roots are not in season here. Pray if they are in season at Lacock remember your promise of some of Mr Herberts <7> things for Ab. & take notice if you leave them in the ground this winter & it should be a severe one, – whether the Ixias prove more tender than the Gladiolus, as my theory maintains, or if any observable difference in hardiness shews itself among the species – Have you Moræa Northiana, I never saw it in England tho it must have been christened there. Two of the commonest shrubs here are Cluytia pulchella & Bosea Gervamora & Justicia Adhatoda – & Celastrus pyracantha – I begin to like Ceanothi & Celastii better than I did – but I specially recommend Lycium Boerhaviaefolium Cneorum 3coccum <8> ought to be on the rocks for I put it there. I mean to give new names to all the plants in my garden I am so dissatisfied with the old. I shall make a genus Behen, <illegible> of course as Vox barbara. I shall make 6 or 7 species. I shall cut off chamænerium from Epilobium, Chamæburgus from Polygala, & divide Saxifraga into 3 or 4. How does your building go on I expected to have seen you speechifying at Devizes with Scrope <9> & Co
What a fine mess you seem to be in now. I think the burning at Bristol <10> will do more harm than good to Ministers & their cause you are sufficiently near to be alarmed I think at that sort of show of public feeling
Yrs affly
W F S
Is C. to marry Ld V. <11>H. F. Talbot Esqe
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. The home of the Rev Townshend Selwyn, brother-in-law of the 3rd earl of Ilchester.
3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
5. Giovanni Gussone (1787–1866), Flora Sicula, sive Descriptiones et Icones Plantarum rariorum Siciliæ Ulterioris (Naples: 1829).
6. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
7. William Herbert, Dean of Manchester (1778–1847), MP; clergy; botanist; linguist.
8. Tricoccum.
9. George Julius Duncombe Poulett Scrope (1797–1876), MP & scientist.
10. Following the Lords’ rejection of the second reform bill in October 1831, there was rioting in Bristol: the Mansion House was sacked, the prisons broken into and the bishop’s palace burnt. The disorder was suppressed by a cavalry charge.
11. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law. Caroline Feilding married Lord Valletort on 6 December 1831.