TALBOT6052

Lacock
31^st October

My Dear Mother

I have established the painter in the room next mine, called Reading’s room, & he is busily employed in copying the portrait of a quondam ¹ Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford at the particular request of the present Professor,² communicated to me thro’ the Revd M^r Short of Chippenham. –

I have lent him Caroline’s ³ Easel & have had the hospitality to order the fire to be lighted, as no great painter can paint when his fingers are cold. I don’t wonder at your having had yellow fogs in London, we had a very foggy rainy day last Monday, and I was obliged to travel outside the coach. I think the creepers on the South side of the Abbey look very well, neither too many nor too few, & very flourishing. The Cobœa has been covered with flowers; the frost will soon kill it, & it must then be removed – I am taking up my Nepal plants & potting them in the greenhouse meaning to turn them out again in the Spring, & they will flower next summer. Only 2 or 3 kinds flowered this summer. You may remember Aunt Louisa ⁴ gave me the seeds (100 kinds) which she had received from Lady William Bentinck ⁵ the governess of India. I should like to see M^r Twopeny’s ⁶ drawings, would it not be a good thing to have some of them lithographed?

I agree with what you say about the calumny that assails all public men, but no one is obliged to read the newspapers that abuse him. Will it be possible for any one to read all the evidence taken before the Committee on the Bank of England, & that which will be taken on the East India Company’s Charter? I am astounded at the thoughts of having to peruse a folio volume of 670 pages, which it is however I suppose necessary for every M.P. to do, or pretend to have done –

Yours aff^tly
Henry

Yes, I received Caroline’s half letter. ⁷

Lady E. Feilding