Harrow <1>
Sunday
My dear Father
I have just got a letter from my Mother <2> in Edinburgh to which suggests the possibility of my spending a short time at Edinburgh Lacock before going north but there is now no time for you to send me an answer to say whether this would suit you, for the holidays begin next Tuesday: Also before I received this letter I wrote to Edinburgh to say that I should be there on th Tuesday evening, and no answer to this, could reach me in time, otherwise I should have been glad to have spent a short time at Lacock. As it is I shall do what I said I would go to Edinburgh on Tuesday. I have been taking pains with my trials but shall not know the result till after this letter has gone. You will be glad to hear, that my friend Bagwell <3> is head in Classics in his form the 2nd fifth. He is not very clever and is rarely high in the quarter so this is a proof of considerable diligence in getting up the allusions in trials.
Your affect son
Charles Talbot
[envelope:]
H F Talbot Esq.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
3. Richard Bagwell, attended Harrow 1854–1859; son of John Bagwell (b.1811), of Marlfield, Ireland.