Lacock
April 16th
My Dear Charles
I am glad you were able to get the indiarubber bath in London. Had you not better try it and see if it is likely to be really useful in travelling, and whether it is Cumbersome or not. I have fortunately been able to engage the courier J. Bayer <1> who travelled with me to Spain last year and proved most useful.
I think you had better make some enquiries about joining some of the reading parties during part of the long vacation – They generally select some pleasant or picturesque locality – I see in Today’s Times the marriage of John Bagwell Esq. <2> of Marlhill, Tipperary – at Nice; – What relation is he to your friend?
The weather today (Tuesday) was truly splendid –
Your affte
Papa
Natal lily in great beauty, six flowers open.
Word has been sent to Mrs B. as you wished.
P.S.Wednesday April 17
We had an alarm of fire in the Abbey this morning. A great beam which is above the fireplace in my library, and only concealed from view by an inch thickness of plaster, and the paper, took fire – I was the first to notice the discoloration of the paper which assumed a dark half burnt appearance, and on applying my hand to the wall it was too hot to be touched. An alarm was immediately raised, when Wilkins Pullen Gale, Phelps young Banks <3> and others rushed to the rescue, a hole was broke through the plaster and the burning beam extracted the sound part being cut off with a saw, and left in the wall for the present (else the wall would fall) – quantities of water were then poured in with the garden syringe and in about an hour and a half the workmen thought it was safe and they might leave it. But the wall continued very hot all day and is not cool yet. I am going to have the whole of that corner pulled down take away the beam, turn an arch in brick work and put in a new grate & chimneypiece, making a thorough good job of it. Everybody says it was shameful folly in those who 100 years ago put in this beam in this dangerous place and I am tempted to exclaim in the words of Horace Ille et nefasto te posuit die, Quicumque primům,… …in nepotum Pernicičm, opprobriumque pagi, …tecto qui statuit meo Te, triste lignum… <4>
Envelope:
C. H. Talbot Esq.Trin. Coll.
Cambridge
Notes:
1. M J Bayer, courier.
2. No apparent relation to Charles’s friend from Trinity College, Cambridge. [See Doc. No: 08380 and Doc. No: 08388].
3. George Wilkins (b. 1814), gardener at Lacock; William Pullen, Lacock Abbey coachman; John Gale, carpenter at Lacock; Philip Phelps, Surveyor of Taxes & Bailiff, Lacock, and probably a relation of George Banks, jnr (1821–1894), stonemason, Lacock.
4. Horace, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8BC), Roman poet; Odes 2.13 (abridged) The man who first planted thee did it upon an evil day… for the destruction of posterity and the countryside’s disgrace… the man that set thee out on my estate, thou miserable stump…