TALBOT1023

Naples
Dec^r

My dear Henry

I have received 3 letters ¹ from you – two came together so when you thought post was going it went only from your house to the Post office Is Ober Botzen ² in the Tyrol? I never heard that it was famous for needles. I assure you I have the authority of Pallas ³ Clarke, Engelhardt & Parrot⁴ for the altitude I assign to Mt Elborus ⁵ It looks like a lump of melting sugar – & its apparent base is on a level with the average of the snowy range of Caucasus – the mountain as you see it, is all snow –

The shape of Vesuvius which I have this morning descended, is [illustration] it was [illustration] but is lower by 2 or 300 feet than it was & does not seem higher than Somma is in some parts. The crater is quite altered, it is one vast broken chasm like a quarry or a Swedish mine instead of the regular even bowl with flat bottom & little chimnies or Volcanitos in it The day is very cold windy & dusty & I am nearly blind from the storm of ashes & cinder dust that nearly overwhelmed me in descending the Cone it is perfectly quiet – a great deal of common muriate of soda crystallizes on the stones & in some places there are fine efflorescences of sulphur the thermometer 39 F. at the top – 49 at Naples – The Frenchman’s Crater is covered up – no signs of another eruption.

The weather is fine & cold – which is rarely the case at Naples – it is not uncommon for it to be cloudy rainy stormy & cold, but when the sun shines it ought to be hot. I fear this betokens frost in the North, & that my experiments at Abbotsbury ⁶ are being shrammed ⁷ which makes me feel uncomfortable when I think of a pinched cactus & shivering Geraniums. I have made great acquaintance with Tenore ⁸ & mean to make some Botanical excursions with him in the Spring.

I have a little bulb which I brought from the Bosphorus, now coming up in a pot to my great delight it is the Ornithogalum nanum of Sibthorp ⁹ & this plant is to prove whether or not it is the same with the O. exscapum of Tenore – it is a pretty little plant but like many of the Byzantines more like a Northern mountain plant that a luxuriant inhabitant of 41º lat.

Cic. De Repub. is found at Rome not Pompeii¹⁰ so you are right but then I think Silius Italicus ¹¹ Africa was found at Herculaneam.

Do you not think the de Repub will be found too liberal for the present order of things & may perhaps be prohibited in the next Index Expurgatorius? ¹² I think they may publish the Egyptian deed of sale with all its witnesses – and Phizmumpus ¹³ at the head without doing any harm I have been hunting in vain for Lanzi ¹⁴ for myself – Lord Ponsonby ¹⁵ gave me a list of unusual books of that sort not one of which is to be had – Search therefore for Bardelli – Borgia – Lampridi – Accaporci – Guarnaccio – & Lami ¹⁶ on the same subject. I suppose Scipio ¹⁷ was Prognatus patre gnavo ¹⁸ ie non ignavo ¹⁹ I suppose gnavus existed before ignavus & the vod put in for dolcezza. ²⁰ They say Scipios real tomb is at the Lake Patria near Baia²¹ if I do come to Rome I mean to go thro the mountains of the Abbruzzi I want to see Il gran Sasso d’Italia²² their great mountain –

Y^r aff
W T H F S

The Antiquities of the Crimea (thanks to Gothes [sic], Scythians, Russians & Tartars) are reduced to somewhat like the stone walls about Abbotsbury.

A Monsieur
Monsieur W. H. F. Talbot
Palazzo Ceva²³
in Roma