TALBOT1214

Nice
Nov^r 10
1824

My dear Henry

I have been a long time answering your letter ¹ but am not the less obliged to you for all that – The one I received here the very day after I arrived, put me quite in an ecstacy [sic] for it cleared up a g^t many doubts ab^t a number of flowers I had found on the road – & having no foreign botanic book I was quite at a loss. – I have as you may suppose quietly made acquaintance with M. Risso ² & he declares I was lucky for I had found a number of things in france [sic], particularly the Smilax mauritanica at the Pont du Gard & several other nice things. – I have not yet seen the plant of the of the Coris[illegible] but Risso promises to get you seeds of it. I am going to send Jane ³ a list of all I have found. – I never take a walk without finding something quite new to me – the place itself is beautiful tho’ I have not been much beyond the immediate environs yet. – Corsica I have twice seen – once from the Turin & again from the Genoa road.⁴ I went one day to Gueroud[sic] with M. de Chateauneuf ⁵ & sh^d not desire better than to inhabit it for a term of years. – My smattering of botany, conchology & other bits of ologies has been of very great use to us here, for a place so completely without resources I never saw – not one bookseller in such a Town as this & if it was not for M. de Cessolles & M. Avigdor⁶ I know not what we should do. – We intend going one day to the Col de Tende just to see what we can of it – as we have fully determined on going to Genoa by the Corniche in the Spring. – I had a letter from John ⁷ the other day from Naples where he seems to have established himself for the winter. – Henry Frampton ⁸ left us a fortnight ago for Florence – he writes in great dudgeon with the Hotel de Londres at Genoa – which do you recommend? – Will the Convolvulus cantabrica live in England – or the Psoralea or the Scolymus Hispanicus or the ononis minutissima – they are all so pretty I want to introduce them there. – so like the Tragus racemosus & the Globularia – I shall send Harriot Frampton ⁹ seeds of a great many. – I beg you will write to me & pray remember y^r letters give me infinite pleasure –

Y^rs in a hurry
C^s Lemon

[address panel:]
France
a Monsieur
Mon^r H. Talbot

Hotel de la Terrasse
Rue de Rivoli
Paris