TALBOT4834

My dear Henry

I have been waiting to write for ages past, until I could tell you some news of M^rs Campbell’s Memoirs, ¹ but the Editors are so slow in answering that it takes one half a lifetime to know in what predicament one stands. Blackwood & Fraser² have declined it as being too long, & although I have had an offer to read if it from the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” into which I should like to get it, yet I have just decided on giving up the idea of sending it to any magazine. This is partly from the dismal discouragement which I have undergone very recently about a rather nice article on “Wonders of Carved Work” which was accepted by Chambers Journal;³ & when I corrected the press it was all right, but lo! when it was published, some of the most important parts were omitted, & the rest so curtailed & so altered, that it was not my article at all, but a most miserable production, garbled & utterly spoilt, & as a literary specimen very bad altogether. Chambers must be a man of no real education, or he could not have written such awkward sentences, & have joined it so badly where he had omitted between. I am so distressed, & ashamed of it altogether, (though not my fault,) that I will not tell in what number it appeared, & am thankful that he did not put my name. Perhaps he knew that he might get into a scrape if he did, for some of it is not mine, & what was mine is completely altered, suppressed, & spoilt. I have since heard from Sir R. Christison, ⁴ that even he cannot get his MSS correctly published. His Editors or Publishers play tricks with them, & put him in a rage, & if he cannot get fair dealing – what chance have I with strange Editors, & no influence? On the whole therefore, I incline to letting it rest for the present, & so Harriot ⁵ thinks. It is long for a Magazine, & if it were played tricks with, it would be too dreadful. However it appears that Chambers is a particularly disagreeable Editor. Fraser’s refusal is particularly civil, & evidently from the length only. I have written some Lines much approved, on the P. of Wales in India, which my cousin John Harbord, (L^d Suffields brother,) has got into the “Leisure Hour” for Jan^y6 & I hope he may get some more taken. He is Chaplain to Morden College, Blackhurst, the Librarian of which knows Editors &c, so through him there seems a chance for me. One he has got to look at, is curious I think, & not common, “On the Origin of Popular Nursery Lore.” But it is improbable to guess what will please, as they seem to care only for “sensationals” or novels. I do not at all know the “Leisure Hour.” It is a periodical that I have never met with, but I shall esteem it if it takes my compositions, & I have only to hope that what it takes, it will neither garble nor alter, nor omit. So much for my literary history since last I wrote. It is snowing fast, & the therm 30º even at my South window. I have not had much this year in my little strip of garden, but my Spirocas flowered well in lovely feathery spikes – it is a most graceful foreign-looking shrub. – & my Sumach was very pretty & ended when it turned crimson, with being quite glorious. Harriot, to whom I gave some young Spirocas – white – says one has flowered pink, which must be very pretty, & I should ask her to send me back one turned pink, only I suppose it would be white again here – just as in some places purple violets always turn white. Derbyshire soil seems to turn pink. What a beautiful superstition is that concerning the Finderne family in Derbyshire, which family, their house, & even their monuments are gone, & yet in the once garden of the no longer existing house, grow some “Finderne Flowers,” bought & planted by Sir Godfrey [sic] himself on his return from the Crusades, for those flowers “never fade die.”,⁷ There they are now. A Narcissus was one, but I daresay you know all this. As I do not know where you are, I write to Lacock. Will you send me your Photograph? for the “Family Book” which I have been arranging for H^t

y^r aff
Louisa C. Frampton

PS I have forgotten to ask whether, as Rosamond ⁸ is I believe great at drawing & colouring, & as you are all so fond of Cats, she would be so very kind as to make me a little sketch of a Cat who is dead, so I cannot take its Photograph – indeed of two separate Cats, if it were not too much to ask, as they did not live at the same time. One all black, very mild looking & neither large nor small – the other black with a white breast, & 4 white feet, the two hind feet rather more white, & like socks than the 2 front paws, & a small Cat of slender make. Alas! this one was given to catch Rats, & recently came to an untimely end. The all black one died of old age, & I have had no record of him, though he was my greatest favourite & constant companion. If this is too much trouble Rosamond is not to think any more of the request.

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts