Laycock Abbey
25 May
My Dear Henry
I recollect that I omitted to mention what you desired to know, the amount of the Stock, which is £310 in the Reduced 3 pr cent annuities. The Broker's name is Armstrong.
Poor Betty 1 has been talking to me quite in good spirits, so pleased to be thought about by you, and so grateful for what you gave her. What are the properties of the Dialytic Telescope? does it divide objects? or what is the meaning or derivation? I hope Constance 2 will contrive to go some day to see Matilda 3 at Lady Robert FitzGerald's at Hammersmith 4 to explain the drawings of Laycock? which will give her real pleasure and she has so few, poor thing, and she thinks Constance so engaging. Perhaps now you wish you had obtained the £80 a yr for some more deserving person, not that I know anything against him except his bankruptcy. It will surround you at Chippenham 5 with a halo of glory, they will think you omnipotent with Ministers.
The Cactus is much finer than when you left it - the colour is become more brilliant & the blossoms more blown. We have had green peas several times! very early for the open air - and in this ungenial season, all you have been eating in London, are you know, forced. We shall send you some tomorrow and moss roses! think of that. I take it very kind of them blowing so soon this year, and the more so as an adust 6 east wind scorches everything, & a misty blight covers the face of nature. They wash off the myriads of green insects with the Engine & soap & tobacco water, but they come again, - and at Night tho' the windows are shut they come into the library like the Plagues of Egypt & die on the glass of the lamp attracted by the light.
What Merit had Mr Poulter's 7 Sabbath bill that you allowed it in your House to be read a second time? in what is it better than Mr Fleetwood Hesketh's 8 Lords Day No 1 Bill as the newspaper's [sic] call it, which was thrown out?
Mr Feilding 9 requests the note may be given to his late groom who is probably waiting for it Sackville Street
affly yrs
EF
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