TALBOT3121

San Bartolomeo
27^th August

My Dear Henry

I received your letter from Southampton as quick as the post could bring it. M^r Hay ¹ is no longer in office, but somebody always sends them sooner or later. M^r F. ² says its always the delay of one day which the letter rests at Paris, but in common times that does not signify, & sometimes certainly I have remarked that by the Foreign Office they have been 3 days longer than by the general Post, the way by which yours from Southampton arrived so speedily. The cholera is at Mountpellier & all along the South of France so that probably it would arrive at Perpignan as soon as me, if I were to adopt that scheme. As for not taking your advice about Luna Baths how could we? I sacrificed my summer entirely to be with Caroline ³ pendent ses couches ⁴ – it did seem cruel to abandon her at such a moment, even with Cholera approaching à pas de géant. ⁵ Lord V. ⁶ never was able to move till he went to Lucca himself to consult D^r [Nickas?], it was then too late to move her, & the proof that it was so she was confined during his absence, ainsi soyez juste ⁷ & see things in the right light, which is always difficult at a distance, because it is so impossible to write every thing. We have lent the house in S. Street to Caroline from the 1^st October to the 15^th February, when M^r F wants it himself. She will not be in it all the time because they will visit Lord Brownlow ⁸ & other relations, but they want a pied à terre ⁹ in London without the appalling expence of an Hôtel She desires me to say there will always be a bed for you if anything should call you up to town during those Months.

I hope I shall find Lydia at L. Abbey, because I must let Gwynne ¹⁰ visit her Mother who is old & ill, at Oswestry, & I should like to find some one I am used to. Where do you think of passing part of the Winter? you need not be gêné ¹¹ because whenever you go away which would probably be in January, I think I shall go into Dorsetshire. The only difficulty in that case would be Amandier, ¹² & I suppose I had better tell her to [illegible] till Horatia ¹³ & M^r F. return to England; but I shall do nothing till I hear from you in answer to my last. The cholera is quite dreadful at Genoa, & there it even attacked some of the Noblesse, an impropriety it has only committed once here. It is now at Milan notwithstanding the Austrian cordon of 60 thousand men, & it is so sporadic that Lord V. is in a great puzzle which road to take, & has not yet made up his mind, because we are every day hearing of some new place attacked by cholera. Have you seen Halley’s Comet ¹⁴ yet? We thought we saw it but I believe it was the Pleiades Tell us at what o’clock & what part of the Heavens to look for the Comet

W. H. Talbot Esq^re
Laycock abbey
Chippenham
Wilts