TALBOT3220

Sloperton, ¹
March 10^h 1836

Many thanks, my dear Talbot, for your intelligence respecting the umbrella. In such weather as this, it is not very agreeable to be one of that class designated in the ever memorable verse

Vos inumbrelles video &c.²

You need not, however, take the trouble of forwarding it any farther on its way than to Paternoster Row (Longman’s) where it may await the coming of a parcel.³ I was under the impression that I had left also a shirt behind me in the metropolis – but it turns out (to the wonderment of the whole household) that I have brought home my full number – which pray do not forget to tell to your servant, as I must have rather alarmed him by the Hue and Cry after the shirt which I addressed to him yesterday.

I must again thank M^rs Talbot⁴ and yourself for the comfort and agrémens [sic]⁵ which you diffused over my bustling visit both by the hospitality of your welcome & by the agreeable snatches of your society which my being under your roof enabled me to enjoy.

With kindest regards to the fair hostess,

believe me ever, my dear Talbot, very truly yours
Thomas Moore

I was not able to see Lord John ⁶ again, but enclosed him your note, with a reiteration of my former request. Whether any thing will come of it, God alone knows

I inflict the postage of this upon you (instead of sending it through any member)⁷

in order that no time may be lost in stilling the alarm respecting the stray shirt – which would afford no bad parody on the old Ballad of “Whither, my shirt, love, ah whither art thou gone?”⁸

[address panel:]
H. F. Talbot Esq^r
31 Sackville St
London