TALBOT2405

Bowood ¹
29^th August

My Dear Henry

Lord Lansdowne ² says that as you have not written to us once since you went away, you must be in love, there is no other way of accounting for it. We attended the Archery meeting at Melksham Spa,³ all for the sake of your popularity, which you don't attend to yourself so much as we do. The aristocracy of the neighborhood were there, in the shape of Lansdownes, Payne Gallweys, Feildings, Moneys, Lockes, Starkeys, Sir Alexander Mallet, & the Hon^ble Richard Edwardes.⁴ M^r Chalons, whose Studio I believe you have visited with Kit ⁵ is here, & M^r Joy⁶ who I have invited to dine Saturday at Laycock entirely to please you, & in hopes you will take it instead of inviting him in London.

Do not come home without letting me know, because Lord Carnarvon & the Stapletons ⁷ come the 10^th of September & we should not be able to hold them & the Gallweys without your bed. They say they can only stay one night. We return home tomorrow to receive M^r Vivian who is coming from Lord Ailesbury's ⁸ at Tottenham Park

Aff^ly Y^rs
EF

Miss Locke (the beauty) won Kerry's ⁹ prize the silver Bracelet - it is a Silver Dove holding a convolvulus of which the buds are Amythists. John ¹⁰ has caught the S[mall p]ox of his friend Lord Braba[illegible] ¹¹

Calne August Thirtieth 1832 Lansdowne
H. Fox Talbot Esq.
Post Office
Cowes