Melbury <1>Dorchester
27 Septr
My dear Henry
I suppose you are now enjoying the fine autumn there is said to be in Scotland while we are in fogs & rain without ceasing.
If you visit occasionally the Botanic Garden can you learn for me if they have a rare plant called Nyctanthes Arbor tristis which I have long desiderated – wishing to collect all the tristes <2> I can.
What do you think of the new idea that the world is not an oblate spheroid? but an elongated one? in other words, a Malta orange instead of a S. Michaels.
And is one to believe that the Sun is a bundle of polarized semi metals?
What a shameful trick the Russian Govt have played Zamoyski’s brother <3> – it shows it is hopeless to expect any thing from such ruffians –
I hope soon to go to Abby <4> where I will give you some account of the vegetable worlds there. Here I am trying to get up all the Oaks of North America. Some do very well.
If Caroline <5> is with you give her & Ernestine <6> my love & condolences over poor Garibaldi. <7>
I hope you are all well at Millburn <8> – when do you come South again?
Yr affe
Wm
[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esqr
Millburn Tower
Edinburgh
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. sorrowful ones [‘weeping’ forms of trees and shrubs]
3. A brother of Count Wladyslaw Zamoyski (1803–1868), the Polish patriot who lived in London [see Doc. No: 02450] and is mentioned in the Correspondence particularly during the early 1830s.
4. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
5. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister. She was an enthusiastic supporter of liberation movements in Italy and Poland – see Doc. No: 04660.
6. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
7. The Italian nationalist had been wounded and taken prisoner by government forces at Aspromonte, 27 August 1862, on his way to attack [French-occupied] Rome.
8. Millburn Tower, Gogar, just west of Edinburgh; the Talbot family made it their northern home from June 1861 to November 1863. It is particularly important because WHFT conducted many of his photoglyphic engraving experiments there. The house had a rich history. Built for Sir Robert Liston (1742-1836), an 1805 design by Benjamin Latrobe for a round building was contemplated but in 1806 a small house was built to the design of William Atkinson (1773-1839), best known for Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. The distinctive Gothic exterior was raised in 1815 and an additional extension built in 1821. Liston had been ambassador to the United States and maintained a warm Anglo-American relationship in the years 1796-1800. His wife, the botanist Henrietta Liston, née Marchant (1751-1828) designed a lavish American garden, sadly largely gone by the time the Talbots rented the house .