TALBOT2409

Laycock abbey
4^th September

My Dear Henry

How very odd you are! to take no notice of a Letter I wrote to you from Bowood, franked by Lord Lansdowne on Thursday 30^th August¹ - & which there has been ample time to answer. I asked you particularly in it to let me know exactly what day you intend coming because of the arrangement of the rooms, as Lord Carnarvon & the Stapletons ² & Niemchevitz the Pole, a friend of Kosciusko's ³ & consequently of Lord Carnarvon's come on Monday the 10^th September & the Gallweys ⁴ will still be here - so that we shall be un peu à l'étroit ⁵ but it can be contrived with some ingenuity. Nothing can be more chearful than those Girls are, which is lucky for Horatia, the first summer passed without Caroline. ⁶

We have had a visit from M^r Vivian who left us to go to Tottenham Park ⁷ & returns here from thence tomorrow M^r Edwardes⁸ remained a week & was of great use in acting Charad[es]⁹ &c &c &c this with occasional coruscations from M^r Moore ¹⁰ and Lord Lansdowne who always seems to like dining here, has enlivened the abbey, which never looked better than it has done these two last days when we have been lit up again by a brilliant summer sun. In hot weather the Cloisters are so beautiful!

You never mention who is at Cowes, & I marvel what can make the balls & Archery meetings^<11> so pleasant, as by all accounts there is very little good company there this year, & without it no gaieties are worth anything.

With this I send two letters that have come for you. I have always misgivings tho Kit¹¹ gets your letters directed to Cowes, which would at least delay them.

Aff Y^rs
E F

If you take no notice of this I shall conclude you mean to cut my correspondence

M^r Bowles is writing the History of Ela,¹² and searching in Matthew Paris ¹³ for aids.

M^r Moore seems to have taken quite an affection for this place which he has rendered classic ground, not only by the honorable mention of it in the verses addressed to Caroline (which will go down to posterity)¹⁴ but by some clever political lines he wrote here the other day in a wet morning

Henry Fox Talbot Esq^r
Post Office
Cowes
Isle of Wight