TALBOT156

My dear Henry

I send you another Thalictrum from Chequers ¹ where I have been staying with the Franklands ² – it is a delightful place & put me much in mind of Lacock on high land surrounded with beautiful beechwoods & fine trees of all sorts – & vast thickets of box & juniper I found there Epipactis ensifolia which is not a common plant, & a straw coloured variety of Helianthemum – Sambucus Ebulus, & a singular looking large black mushroom or fungus cup shaped with netted gills & like a mushroom turnd over – The house is full of curiosities especially Cromwelliana & seems to have been a repair[?] of roundheads being in Pym ³ & Hampden’s ⁴ country There is a long gallery made into a library with large bay windows – curious old books & papers.

Tell me what you have in flower – Is a good Camera obscura expensive – I have a great mind to try Photography. I like Valletorts ⁵ specimen of a sea piece drawn on purpose with slits &c –

Y^r Aff
W F Strangways