Lacock
Thursday 13 Novr
Dear Whewell
I am afraid that the Courier is no longer to be had. When I wrote to him to say that Mrs Spedding <1> had engaged another Courier, he wrote in reply that he should go to Nice for the winter, in hopes of obtaining some Engagement there, and at all events being sure of spending much less money there than he would do in London during the winter. It is just possible however that he may not have gone. I therefore communicate his name and address
G. Fino
9 Warwick St
Regent St London
I recommend him very strongly-
In reply to your kind enquiry as to my literary occupations, I am working just now at the Assyrian inscriptions. I have published some remarks in the Journal of Sacred Literature <2> of which I send you two numbers, there is a third which I will send when I can lay my hand on a copy -
I am now printing a portion of a larger work <3> on the subject comprising a translation of the Bellino Cylinder in the British Museum (the first two years of Sennacherib's reign) - that of the Esarhaddon cylinder also in the B. Museum, and another inscription with the annals of a much earlier monarch. The subject is a curious one and full of historic interest -
By the way I believe you have in Trin. Coll. <4> Library a Babylonian Cylinder of which Sir H. Rawlinson <5> has given, not a translation, but a general notion or outline - I should like much to see this inscription and I think it would be desirable that the College should publish a lithographic facsimile of it, with a translation and notes so as to make this interesting relic available for the progress of Science.
Believe me Yours very Truly
H.F. Talbot
Notes:
1. The Speddings were both landlords and social acquaintances when the Talbots stayed in Greta Bank.
2. WHFT published a series of papers titled 'On the Assyrian Inscriptions' Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record the first of which appeared, ser. 2 vol. 2 no. 4 (Jan 1856); the second, ser.2, vol. 3, no. 5 (April 1856); and the third ser. 2, vol 3, no. 6 (July 1856).
3. Observations on a Babylonian Cylinder, belonging to Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., Middle Hill (privately printed, 1857).
4. Trinity College, Cambridge
5. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810-1895), orientalist