TALBOT618

Harrow ¹
Oct. 10^th 1814

My dear Mamma,

Tell me how you found out that it was the Geranium pratense. I am glad that I guessed right. The Sedum Telephium is quite wild at Penrice, ² & not uncommon; I first observed it on Prospect Rock. ³ The Botanical name of the Tyger Lily ⁴ is Ferrania Tigridia. - Cobea scandens. - Kit ⁵ & I slept in the same room at Penrice, in one of the new ones. Lancashire Asphodel grows pretty plentifully on Cefn Bryn, ⁶ & at this season of the year looks very pretty with its pointed orange seedvessels - I wish you would tell me M^r Satterthwaite's ⁷ manner of drying plants. I think you go to places with the oddest names I ever heard. - The weather is very cold & serene; - I have just begun over again the routine of lessons, with which I commenced in the Shell ⁸ in April 1812. I hardly remember a word of them. They are the Idylls of Theocritus, ⁹ in the Doric dialect of Greek, which was spoken in Sicily. They are the most mellifluous verses I ever read. I shall have to speak a declamation up in school, soon upon the following subject: whether Sparta or Athens was most calculated to produce Great men. - Write me your opinion - I had some mutton chops every day (six) last week, with Kit, & another boy, in company with potatoes & beer: the bill for which is nineteen shillings - Is not that very dear? I have [illegible deletion] not had any more, until I hear from you on the subject - Is M^r F. ¹⁰ gone with you to Nocton? ¹¹

Your Aff^te Son
W H F Talbot

Lady Elis: Feilding
Nocton