Wallington
June 21st 1818
Thanks for your epistle, <1> my Dear Talbot, which I found here on my arrival on Friday last. – I left Oxford on the 5th and spent a few days at Eyford near Stow on the Wold, and found there in a native state, Viola hirta, Ophrys nidus-avis, Helleborus viridis, Cheledonium majus, Daphne Mezereum, Hippuris vulgaris, and Lilium martagon now perfectly wild, probably naturalized, Hippocrepis comosa. My father who hast [sic] just returned from Edinburgh, has brought with him a plant of Veronica hirsuta, discovered by Mr Hopkirk <2> of Dalbeck near Glasgow, – of which I will (if you wish) preserve you a specimen. – We shall be delighted to see you here at any time that you can make it convenient to come & hope & expect you will give us a long visit. The Musci & Lichenes of our neighbourhood are anxiously looking forward to your arrival and arraying themselves in their best robes. – I suppose you amongst other Harrovians have received a dunning circular for a new speech room, I should like before I give any thing, to see the monument of our founder erected which we subscribed to about four years ago. – I do not suppose that Mr Brougham <3> will find any thing amiss in the management of the Harrow <4> funds. – The weather since Friday has been very wet, but I hope you will not find it so at your arrival. – Some of your cape [sic] plants are very flourishing, I should like to shew you them. – I am meditating a tour into the Highlands, some time this vacation, which if I accomplish I expect will afford me much pleasure, and additions to my collections, in Geology, botany &c. – If you happen to pass through Litchfield, there is a monument in the Cathedral, which (if you did not see it when exhibited in Somerset house [sic]<5> last year) would I think please you much, it is to the memory of the children of Mr Robinson, <6> sculptured by Chantry, I was highly delighted with it, as also with some of the stained glass, which is particularly fine. –
I am happy to hear of your success at Cambridge though you do not tell me in what way it was. –
Believe me
yours very truly
W. C. Trevelyan
[address panel:]
W. H. F. Talbot Esqre
31 Sackville Street
Piccadilly
London
Notes:
1. Not located.
2. Probably Thomas Hopkirk (1785–1841), botanist.
3. Probably Henry Peter Brougham, Baron of Brougham & Voux (1778–1868), Lord Chancellor.
4. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
5. London.
6. The Sleeping Robinson Children, Litchfield Cathedral (1817), the most celebrated work of the English sculptor Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey (1781–1842).