TALBOT559

Harrow ¹
Feb^ry 20^th 1812.

My dear Mamma,

I providently got Richard ² to change the Bath bank note as I knew it would not pass elsewhere: at present my left foot is very bad, so that I do not go up to School; this is called staying out, I rather think it should be staying in. You say that giving what we do not want is not generosity: what is it then? Suppose I give a beggar six pence, though I may not want it myself, is it just the same as if I gave nothing?– I am going to send Betty ³ the money I owe her, whenever Richard chooses to tell me what it is for, in a parcel; do not you think that I had better send her some more with it; & that besides would defray the expence of the parcel, & the letters that I write to her; for I know nobody here who can frank them – At present rackets are the game in vogue among the big boys, & [pistols?] among the little ones. Our general dinner is roast mutton, & rice pudding: but sometimes veal, for Sunday) roast or boiled beef, pork or beef pie or soup, with perhaps plum pudding, apple pie, dumplings, &c, so that we fare well here. I shall very soon write again, you cannot complain of my writing seldom my engagement was to write three times a month, & I have written seven times in 5 weeks but now I take a pleasure in writing to you, somehow more than before the holidays, write often to Betty she will like it so,

Y^r Aff^te Son
W. H. F. Talbot.

Lady Elisabeth Feilding
Penrice Castle
Swansea
Glamorgan