TALBOT589

Harrow ¹
March 5. 1813.

My dear Mamma,

I want my blue phosphorus box extremely, so pray send it. I think you had better send me with it 100 of the matches, which is only 8^d I believe, and ask Accum² whether the stuff they are dipped into, is sulphuric acid or not. – I forget where the key of the black trunk was put – Has M^r Lemons ³ ticket No 3185 I think, come up a blank or a prize? I have been making some nitrate of quicksilver. It forms pretty yellow crystals, by heating which in the candle, they turn to a bright red powder, which when it is taken away turns yellow-orange colour. Pray send me a little good quicksilver, which can be got at Accum’s & I will try & make vermillion out of it for you. – I have also been dissolving a halfpenny in nitric acid it makes lovely little crystals, blue, of this size [illustration], of this sort of shape but smaller, [illustration]. I have got a small steel bow – I have just finished the Lady of the Lake. ⁴ – I read all the notes. I have also read these plays of Shakespeare. John. Richard 2^d. Henry 4^th & I am now reading Henry 5^th. I have nearly finished it – Sir James Ramsay ⁵ has got nearly 70 £ worth of books well bound, here. I intend to borrow them all, one after another. I hurt my arm very much Wednesday last, but it is almost well now. Pray send me some more dates and French plums, for they are universally admired. Open one of the dates, take out the stone lay a knife on it, & with a sudden blow of a hammer split it in two, then pray observe its singular substance, so very like flint, and so amazingly hard. My Paul and Virginia^<6> calls the date “full of sweet cream, which has the perfume of orange flowers.” My dates had no cream in them – Give my love to M^r Feilding Caroline & Horatia; ⁶ & ask M^r F. if he cannot come & see me, before he sets out for Rutlandshire –

Your Affectionate Son
WHFTalbot ⁷

P.S. – Last Tuesday being Shrove Tuesday we had our anniversary dinner on pancakes – Lemons & sugar rolled over the tables in promiscuous confusion.

Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville S^t
London