TALBOT3178

Nice
10^th Decemb^r

My Dear Henry

Full a fortnight before your secret ¹ arrived we had heard it from Sir Horace Seymer ² in a letter from Brighton, though I confess I could hardly bring myself to believe it, because it had been so often reported before. He has made the very choice I had often advised, & I am persuaded she is extremely well suited to him & an excellent disposition, thought not perhaps calculated to inspire a romantic passion, & tant mieux vû les circonstances. ³ How glad I am you have had Caroline ⁴ with you at the dear old Abbey I do not wonder she was attendrie ⁵ at finding herself there – how much she has felt & suffered since she last left its walls – Do tell me what you have settled with her about London, because my plans may very materially depend on it. I conclude you have talked it all over with her. I gave Horatia ⁶ your invitation to write to you, but ever since her rhumatic fever she has contracted a reluctance & inaptitude to write, I suppose because it was so very long she could not. – I am so desirous of finding Fitzsimons ⁷ when I return, that if it is only an affair of wages as you seem to say, M^r F. ⁸ would be very glad to add £5 for the next year to him, if you have no objection, for as he has committed no fault I conclude you would not mind keeping him a little longer, tho’ he is not the most perfect of his kind, particularly if you have cold thoughts of the place & are alienated from it, in which case it signifies less to you getting another gardener. It is not for his beaux yeux M^r F. wants to keep him but he thinks that as he had the care of his horses it is of some consequence to him to receive them himself, out of his keeping. Answer upon all these points. I am extremely pleased at your present occupation & think it will result in more happiness & fame than ungrateful politics, which after Men have strutted their hour, leave not a wrack behind. Such is the multiplicity of events in modern times that public men & even great services are too soon forgotten, – recent things treated as History & history as an old almanach. I was disturbed to read Kerry’s indiscreet mot at Devizes in Galignani, ⁹ the next day it was contradicted. Sir F. Burdett’s ¹⁰ letter was too diffuse, had it been more condensed it would have told more. I hope O’Connell ¹¹ will still smart for his Carlow transactions. It was too bad of the R. Society to blackball Raphael for such a reason. Pray write to me

H. F. Talbot Esq^r
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wiltshire
Angleterre