TALBOT1446

Sackville Street ¹
June 18^th 1826 –

My dear Henry

It is very good of me to write to you so soon, though I have not yet received an answer to a letter I wrote a month ago, nor indeed have you written a word to me, since the 31^st of March. Horatia received your last one the 9^th June, ² & has answered it. However as I must not be revengeful at this distance, I will tell you what we have been doing lately. Yesterday we went to S^t John’s Wood to see, what I know interests you more than any thing, a balloon go off. The operation of filling it was very slowly performed, as they managed it themselves without the help of the Gas–company, & though we arrived late in the afternoon, & it had been begun the preceeding evening, we were obliged to wait three hours before it was ready to set off, broiling in the sun all the time & inhaling the fumes of the vitriol, which were intolerable. A very small balloon only twice the size of yours was first let off, being purposely half filled with gas, which gave it a rotatory motion; it was in this shape [illustration] – When every thing was ready, M^r Cornillon [sic],³ a Frenchman, master of the balloon, got into the car accompanied by M^r Jolliffe,⁴ an english amateur, who had once a very bad fall in descending from one of his aërial expeditions. This, it seems, has not deterred him; they both looked very happy, waving their white flags as they rose majestically over our heads, in return for the universal cheer with which they were greeted by the admiring spectators. They were wafted by a gentle breeze over London, & in 5 minutes we lost sight of them in a cloud; they soon re-appeared above it however, but as they ascended very quick, they were at last enveloped entirely, & we lost sight of them altogether. –

M^r Martius ⁵ has been here these 3 weeks; he dined with us the other day & afterwards took a drive to Kensington Gardens & Primrose Hill ⁶ where we had a very good view of London without much smoke for once. He desired me to tell you how sorry he was not to find you here, & that he had brought you some dried flowers & a “Monographie der Amerikanischen Oxalis-Arten, von D^r Zuccharini, mit 6 Steindrücken”. ⁷ M^r Fraunhofer ⁸ has also sent you a “Theorie der Höfe, Nebensonnen und verwandter Phänomene, mit Versuchen zur Bestätigung derselben”, by himself.⁹ We were all very sorry to hear that poor Mr Fraunhofer is very ill, & that the air of Italy is considered ¹⁰ as the only means by which he can possibly recover; he made himself much worse by working in his glass manufactory for 36 hours without taking any rest. When D^r Martius was on his way to England he received also the news of the death of his friend D^r Spix ¹¹ who travelled with him in the Brazils; this had nearly determined him to put off his visit to England, & will at all events shorten it. – Mama ¹² desires me to say she is waiting to hear from you before she writes; et à présent que je t’ai écrit une si longue letter je serai extrêmement piquée si tu ne me réponds bien vite. ¹³

Addio, mon bon petit Henri, crois-moi toujours ta s œur affectionée ¹⁴
Caroline Augusta Feilding

Mr Tremayne has resigned & Sir R. Vyvian ¹⁵ & Mr Pendarvis ¹⁶ (of an old Cornish family & supposed to be a whig) have been elected. M^r Hobhouse ¹⁷ & Sir F. Burdett ¹⁸ have been elected for Westminster, Thompson, Waithman, Wood & Ward ¹⁹ for the city, Calvert & Sir Robert Wilson ²⁰ for Southwark, & M^r Fazakerly ²¹ for Lincoln. Lord John Russell ²² has a very strongly-contested election at Huntingdon, but we hope he will come in. M^r Sumner [illegible deletion] resigned for Surrey on the last day, because he found himself so justly unpopular on account of the tread-mill for women –
Addio ancora ²³

Monsieur
Monsieur W. H. F. Talbot

aux soins de [illegible] M Strangways
Chargé d’affaires de la R. Brittanique
Florence
Basle
Svizzera
Italien