TALBOT1472

29 Aug 1826

Dear Henry

My telling you your pictures w^d soon be packed arose from the American figure of anticipation vulgarly called counting chickens before they are hatched – The Marchesa ¹ will not come to terms so there is an end of that till she gets poorer which may be about the time you are going to Sicily. I have been talking to M^r Irvine about the packing he has been so good as to recommend me a packer, & a merchant in London & to superintend it himself – The Ezekiel ² I mean to send with the copy of the Medusa you saw which I have got for 6£– with the frame he asked 12£½– I think it not a bad bargain as there is a great deal of work in it & it will be a fit companion to a copy I have with much ado persuaded him to make of his curious Angel by Leon. dV: he thought it would hurt the sale of it but I have convinced him it would promote it. Wallis’s ³ will not be ready to go with the Ezekiel I shall leave him therefore to send it according to the way he is used to with mine.

I will enquire about the insurance ⁴ I think it should be done in London – but you puzzle me by talking of sending it to Paris it cannot be in England before the 1. Oct^r I think it will be safer in Sackville S^{t 5} I hope Kit ⁶ has a taste for pictures he could so conveniently carry home any quantity. I have a long letter from Tenore ⁷ who has been botanising in Calabria & is puzzled about oaks. he has found some fine Mountain Crocuses on M^te Pollino 6000 f^t above the sea – I shall send him some of my new one is it not a Chariessa æstivalis –

Y^r Aff
W T H F S

You pay I hear but a shilling a foot d[uty]⁸ on Pictures in England in France I believe considerably more

Henry Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville Street
London