Melbury <1>
Thursday
My dear Henry
I found the garden here in great beauty there are many things you would like to see particularly Cerastium alpinum – Arenaica grandiflora, graminifolia, & another O. <2> narbonense I now see is quite difft from O– pyramidale & flowers later not being out yet – it is the only O. I know with glaucus leaves. For Dianthus arenarius I have three plants up one plain white, another with a red central ring, & another semidouble – There is a double pink Lychnis very handsome the single of which I cannot divine, we have double L. alpina, double dioica, a double viscaria – there is a dwarf single one too very like Viscaria but not viscous. Geranium umbrosum has white flowers & looks pretty under trees – I have a very handsome white Centaurea – no name – Anchusa Italica is a great ornament to a large garden it figures well among shrubs & Symphytum asperrimum
To my great surprise 4 or 5 plants of Psoralea glandulosa, a Peruvian plant which I had quite given up in the old seed bed after seeing them twice covered with a foot of snow to say nothing of frosts, are now nearly a foot high & very strong – it is naturally a shrub, but I dare say will become herbaceous here like the Fuchsia – I think other South american plants might be cultivated on the same terms the sweet Valkameria which is a shrub at Naples is herbaceous at Florence – Cæsalpinia Sappan little better – Verbena triphyllos is so here – at Abbotsbury <3> a shrub – Pray try this experiment at Lacock. The Roman Iris is in fine flower – at Maiden Newton <4> is one of nearly the same colour but larger – Ipomæa Quamoclit in flower (indoors) a beautiful blue one just over – & become a stout dwarf in stead of climber – rather an improvement –
I sent a manuscript Novel to Sackville street <5> which anybody may read it is rather long for London leisure & its chief interest is not till near the end Have you been to the Marchesa <6> or rather Contessa 28 Essex Strand. There are two things she particularly wants which perhaps you could help her in better than me – to be introduced to Countess S. Antonio & to get a ticket to see the prorogation of the H. of Lords particularly if the Kings <sic> goes in person.
I stay here till Monday when we adjourn to Abbotsbury –
Yr Affte
W F S
If you shd go to Whitleys nursery Fulham with Jane <7> enquire for a yellow flowered Pittosporum quite new – Eaton said that & Clapton were the two best gardens he saw by far –1827 Sherborne, June twenty two, Ilchester <8>
H. Talbot Esqr –
31 Sackville St
London
<enclosure>
Papilio <9>
from Amici <10>
June 14. 1827
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Ornithogalum.
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Rev Charles Redlynch Fox Strangways (1761–1836), uncle of William Strangways, was rector of Maiden Newton, Somerset.
5. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
6. The Marchesa Grimaldi. [See Doc. No: 05083.]
7. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
8. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
9. Written on scrap of paper, possibly in WHFT’s hand.
10. Prof Giovanni Battista Amici (1786–1868), Italian optician & man of science.