TALBOT503

My dear Henry

You cannot think how much pleasure your letter gave me both because it pleased me to hear about you & little Caroline ¹ & also because it proved you had not quite forgotten poor Aunt Mary – Ellinor ² is now getting much better tho’ 3 days ago I quite despaired of her life but the Ague which reduced her has not returned & I hope she will regain her strength as rapidly as she had lost it – Jane ³ is grown so fat so tall & so stout that you would hardly believe she had ever been Ill. Charlotte ⁴ wishes heartily that she could have a game of Romps with you and Caroline but I am afraid there is no chance of our seeing you in London you must persuade your Mother & M^r Feilding ⁵ to come & spend the hot weather at Penrice, ⁶ as the Sea Air and Water is so good for all the party – there has been an Exhibition of Wild Beasts here ⁷ which I went to see fed & I assure you is [sic] was a most savage sight the Tigers & Leopards growled & roared over their food near a quarter of an hour before they began to eat only now & then tearing it with their teeth – a Lady who went with me told me, her Aunt had been in the East Indies & that once when she was walking (near a river luckily where there was a ferry) she saw a Tiger just making a leap at one of her little Children she had two with her & she immediately snatched them up one under each arm & ran towards the boat, but one Child (being the heaviest I suppose) she dropped but not having the heart to leave it she returned picked it up & jumped into the boat just time enough to save them & the Tiger was in such a rage at missing his prey that he sprung into the water after them & when I heard these monsters growl I could not help thinking how dreadful it must be to be alive in their Clutches. amongst them was an Ursine Sloth a most Extraordinary looking Creature with the figure of a Bear & the habits of a mole. I hear from Penrice that the garden is so beautiful & the Green Peas in Blossom more double violets than they think work while to gather & the Hyacinths enamelling my parterres – Yet here we are neither enlivened by a gay prospect or exhilarated by the Songs of the Birds but sometimes I stop to listen for a quarter of an hour together to a dusty Thrush that hangs in a Cottage about a hundred yards out of the Town where I walk almost every day – I hope when I see you you will teach me those Mathematicks that are so entertaining – pray remember to tell your Mamma [text missing] ⁸ pray write to me again & tell me all your occupations & amusements we have been picking up a great many Flints with Chrystalizations in the inside they are sparkling & beautiful, I found on Old Sarum two Petrified Echini, one in Chalk & the other in Flint, they have all the marks of where the Spines once grew still marked on them. pray write & tell your Mama to write for to hear about you all I can assure you gives the greatest pleasure to your aff^te Aunt
Mary Lucy Talbot –

give my love to M^r Feilding –

W. H. F. Talbot Esq^r
at Charles Feildings Esq
Sackville Street
London
Salisbury Apr 8 1809 ⁹