Melbury <1>
11 Decr
My dear Henry
I am coming to Bowood <2> next week & mean to bring some of Emily’s <3> dried plants which she thinks you worthy to be possessed of. I suppose if I leave them at Chippenham they will reach you – or at any rate they would be safe at Bowood till you have an opportunity of getting them
There is a beautiful blue Exacum in flower in the stove here. & a rose Tydæa – & a very sweet scented Zygopetalum.
I hope you did not forget Dr Lindley’s <4> German periodical
What a pity Ministers have let themselves be drawn into new Conferences <5> – I suppose Ld John <6> will want to go to redeem his diplomatic character.
I hope Mrs T. <7> & all are better for Bath. pray ask Mlle Amélina <8> with my compts whether she knows an old French poet du Bartas <9> – who wrote La Sémaine – or as he spells it La Sepmaine – it is a great delight & very likely to be in an old library such as you have at Lacock.
Yr aff
W F S
[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
3. Amelia ‘Emily’ Matilda Murray (1795–1884), author and Maid of Honor to Queen Victoria. Although a strong advocate in the Royal Court for the education of delinquent and abandoned children, she defended the institution of slavery in the American South after her travels there between July 1854 and October 1855. The publication of her memoir on this forced her resignation as Woman of the Bedchamber. Murray, Letters from the United States, Cuba, and Canada (London: J. W. Parker & Son, 1856).
4. Prof John Lindley (1799–1865), botanist.
5. To try to solve the Italian question. [Austria ruled much of Italy; France supported Italian independence (as did British public opinion); a congress was proposed but never took place, and the Franco-Austrian war began in April 1859.] See E. L. Woodward, The Age of Reform (Oxford History of England), Oxford, 1938.
6. Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), statesman. He had been criticised for his proceedings during the negotiations to end the Crimean War.
7. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
8. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
9. Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas (1544–1590), French poet. His epic poem on the Creation, La Sepmaine, was published in Paris in 1578.