TALBOT1450

29 June

Dear Henry

I hope you got the last letter I sent to Basle I have been to M^r Wallis ¹ who was not here when you were & I recommend you to have the Correggio ² done by him his colouring is so very Correggiesque & he has made that Master his particular study & once made a copy of the very picture in the tribune for Mrs Otway Cave whose daughter H. Murray ³ is going to marry so you might perhaps get a sight of it in London – he asks 40 Louis – perhaps the Italian would do it cheaper, but you sh^d encourage English artists particularly when they are the best & you pay only half the duty on importation – I think I shall get 2 heads of S. Joseph & the dates done by him He has also an Ezekiel ⁴ which he will not sell – but would copy it for 30 Louis as he did for Sir W. Chatterton ⁵ – I have not yet decided which is best – his or Colzi’s for 25 Ls. Nocchi wants to know if you take the Biliverti in tondo for 50 L.s Colzi has a fine Vandyk ⁶ for 20 but one does not come to Italy to buy Vandyks – M^r Irvine tells me the portrait of Scamoeri[?] by Domenichino for 100£s is really very cheap good – & the man has a capital specimen of Mengs ⁷ Thallasson & I think we shall get around the Marchesa ⁸ she now says she has some more good pictures in a loft somewhere. I found at Cauggi Chironia maritima (yellow), Linum nodi florum, & the Lathyrus in ripe seed – not the least articulated & having several flowers on a stalk therefore not cornutus which has but one & oval leafits [sic] At Pisa I found Helianthemum Tuberaria, or plantagineum – Fumaria – but not Arabicum which Savi ⁹ promised me. Scrophularia canina, Dianthus attenuatus very pretty & distinct a linear leaved Teucrium with dirty white flowers, Satureia montana very sweet, Quercus suber – an Arabis very like collina V. hybrida – Samolus valeranus. The least interesting of plants sedum stellatum & sempervivoides but deserving its synonym of altissimum – Savi shewed me Lilium tenuifolium a beautiful little plant, Arenaria montana which sh^d be grandiflora & Camp. ¹⁰ of that name – all from Siberia – I have had seeds of all at Melbury ¹¹ – They give one a desire to see the [illegible] At Volterra & M^r Leckies the country is full of grass & woods & water but not a flower – to my disappointment, more noble than Linum tenuifolium & C. medium the air perfumed with Lonicera Etrusca very appropriate to the antiqua sede ¹²s I shall certainly go again to Volterra some day.

Dr Kane who seems a very good English Botanist denies that Orobus tuberosus of this country is ours – which I think you doubted If you find a true specimen in the North or Seeds send it me to enlighten Raddi, ¹³ O. atropurpureus is in flower in horto, ¹⁴ very singular, & I have got A. Lathyroides today from Melbury beautiful of which I gave Jane ¹⁵ once a specimen from Irkutsk I have found Melampyrum cristatum for the first time.

Y^rs
W T H F S

D^r K. says there is another difference between our Habenaria & the English – w^ch has 2 leaves & a bractea whole. This has a bractea large enough to be a 3^d leaf – but thinks it not sufficient to make a species. I do. I have good acc^ts of Mary ¹⁶ at Penrice ¹⁷ & of Sir C. Lemon ¹⁸ who is going there from Cornwall – write soon to me

Svizzera
a Mons^r
Mon^r W. H. F. Talbot
Poste restante
Basle.

W. Fox Strangways