TALBOT2257

Naples

23 Nov.

My dear Henry

It is only lately I have received your letter from Abbotsbury ¹ of Aug. 5. giving a good account of Capparis ovata &c – You should not always contrive to be there at the same season, April or March would be a very good time for your next visit – to see the Spring bulbs. Your Cynanchum acutum I take to be in the style of Periploca græca. I recommend Bignonia crucigera & capreolata – grandiflora I fear would not suit the climate of Lacock – it is the finest creeper I know. Pray try in the Nurseries to get Iris pumila v. pallida – it is a pretty variety to mix with the blue. I hope you have made acquaintance with the Kilmington ² garden in your way from Lacock – I had waited so long for a letter from you that I was very near trying to draw lines from Caroline ³ & Horatia ⁴ when your letter came. Let me know if you receive a small box of Sicilian bulbs from me safe – & soon. You should have it by this time. I have written to desire you should have My Flora Sicula ⁵ from Ab. as I find I want another here – & I know not when I might have an opportunity of sending one. I am now on the point of despatching a box of seeds to Sir C. Lemon, ⁶ roots are not in season here. Pray if they are in season at Lacock remember your promise of some of M^r Herberts ⁷ things for Ab. & take notice if you leave them in the ground this winter & it should be a severe one, – whether the Ixias prove more tender than the Gladiolus, as my theory maintains, or if any observable difference in hardiness shews itself among the species – Have you Moræa Northiana, I never saw it in England tho it must have been christened there. Two of the commonest shrubs here are Cluytia pulchella & Bosea Gervamora & Justicia Adhatoda – & Celastrus pyracantha – I begin to like Ceanothi & Celastii better than I did – but I specially recommend Lycium Boerhaviaefolium Cneorum 3coccum ⁸ ought to be on the rocks for I put it there. I mean to give new names to all the plants in my garden I am so dissatisfied with the old. I shall make a genus Behen, <illegible> of course as Vox barbara. I shall make 6 or 7 species. I shall cut off chamænerium from Epilobium, Chamæburgus from Polygala, & divide Saxifraga into 3 or 4. How does your building go on I expected to have seen you speechifying at Devizes with Scrope ⁹ & C^o

What a fine mess you seem to be in now. I think the burning at Bristol ¹⁰ will do more harm than good to Ministers & their cause you are sufficiently near to be alarmed I think at that sort of show of public feeling

Y^rs aff^ly

W F S

Is C. to marry Ld V. ¹¹

H. F. Talbot Esq^e
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham