TALBOT1135

Genoa
10^th December

My Dear Henry

We are at last most comfortably lodged & have got a very nice house on the Hill, a sort of rus in urbe, ¹ both in & out of the town at once. It has a charming garden in terraces à l'Italienne, ² with treilles de Vignes, ³ orange trees & quantities of roses in full blow. The Weather is most delicious & at the moment you were cutting the fog between Deptford & London we were admiring a magnificent sun set on this beautiful Bay with floods of golden light playing on the gentle waves. The great want here is a place for exercise, Car & Hor ⁴ take long walks, but for me I am tired before I can get out of the town. I am glad we did not take Lord Byron's villa, ⁵ for it is too far in the Country for the Winter, we could not even have come to the Theatre, which is a great resource as they happen to have some very tolerable actors at this moment. What I have liked best since I have been here was my Excursion to la Spezia, ⁶ which killed a week of the Winter, & the weather was so fine one could not help forgetting entirely the season of the year. I am charmed with the hieroglyphics, such a discovery ⁷ almost makes one believe in the perfectibilité de l'esprit humain. ⁸ It is incomprehensible they should have lowered the duties so much as appears by your letter, if we had known that it would not have been worth while to bother ourselves with l'entremise ⁹ of any ambassador. I hope M^r F's ¹⁰ letter will be in time to prevent Richard ¹¹ sending the Caisse ¹² back here, & that he will at once pay the duty upon everything, unless indeed a certain picture by Vandyck ¹³ which I am surprized is valued so high, but probably the Douaniers ¹⁴ of Dover are no judges of original painting. We have got this house for five Months from the 1^st December, an appalling prospect, however I endeavour to make up my mind to it, tho' I own I consider it a sad hole in one's life. Tis not that I dislike Genoa in itself by any means, but we shall certainly have entirely exhausted it long before the 1^st of May, it will probably too be very hot even in March. Lady Jersey ¹⁵ received her pure gold malleable Genoese beads without having been handled by the rude hands of Custom House officers, she is the only one who has answered me of all the numerous letters you took over. There is a Reading room here where all the English Newspapers are taken & Reviews, & new Publications, so we ¹⁶ may have at full length what Galignani ¹⁷ only gives us a taste of Had we known this we need not have sent for Quintin Durward ¹⁸ nor the Age of Bronze, ¹⁹ as we found them here but they are not arrived nor the parcel in which you sent something to Caroline tho' we daily enquire at the Bureau des Diligences. ²⁰

God Bless you My Dearest

W.H.F. Talbot Esq^r
31. Sackville Street
London
Inghilterra