TALBOT6137

Frankfort
24 April 1848

My dear Henry

I enclose you a list of Martius’s ¹ works which he has sent me saying they are now to be sold at a great reduction of price – I dare say Bohn ² has part of them in London. Will you recommend them to Kit ³ or anybody likely to buy such books – Poor Martius is in distress at present having lost Zuccarini ⁴ & a son in law of his within a short time.

Endlicher ⁵ was here among the Vienna deputies ⁶ but did not stay long – Among the numerous Professors there were no botanists, they were almost all Professors of Mental & Intellectual Philosophy a most uninteresting species of Professor.

What are you occupied with at present – are the Assyrian antiquities from Niniveh ⁷ very curious. If you had been in town I meant to have gone with you to the Museum to see the Lycian collection which we did once before when in an incomplete state. I brought with me a copy of Jastrzembski’s Monuments of Angus ⁸ very curious & got up by a refugee Polish Artist under a Club called Bannatyne Club. ⁹ They seem a mixture of Celtic, Runic, Tartar & Byzantine.

The weather is so horrid I cannot get out to see Peonia Wittmanniana ¹⁰ which I want to see – Can you give me any news from Palermo – I hope some of our Italian travellers will come this way but the state of the country is not encouraging. I believe the insurrection about Constance ¹¹ is put down. There is another foolish war in the North ¹² that ought not to have been allowed – by the way Disraeli’s ¹³ speech about it is full of mistakes –

Y^r aff^te
W F S

I have sent Martius’s own letter to Lindley ¹⁴ with catalogue of his Library which you may like to see –

[envelope:]
Henry F. Talbot Esq^r
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
WFS