TALBOT806

Wallington
June 21^st 1818

Thanks for your epistle, ¹ my Dear Talbot, which I found here on my arrival on Friday last. – I left Oxford on the 5^th and spent a few days at Eyford near Stow on the Wold, and found there in a native state, Viola hirta, Ophrys nidus-avis, Helleborus viridis, Cheledonium majus, Daphne Mezereum, Hippuris vulgaris, and Lilium martagon now perfectly wild, probably naturalized, Hippocrepis comosa. My father who has^t [sic] just returned from Edinburgh, has brought with him a plant of Veronica hirsuta, discovered by M^r Hopkirk ² of Dalbeck near Glasgow, – of which I will (if you wish) preserve you a specimen. – We shall be delighted to see you here at any time that you can make it convenient to come & hope & expect you will give us a long visit. The Musci & Lichenes of our neighbourhood are anxiously looking forward to your arrival and arraying themselves in their best robes. – I suppose you amongst other Harrovians have received a dunning circular for a new speech room, I should like before I give any thing, to see the monument of our founder erected which we subscribed to about four years ago. – I do not suppose that M^r Brougham ³ will find any thing amiss in the management of the Harrow ⁴ funds. – The weather since Friday has been very wet, but I hope you will not find it so at your arrival. – Some of your cape [sic] plants are very flourishing, I should like to shew you them. – I am meditating a tour into the Highlands, some time this vacation, which if I accomplish I expect will afford me much pleasure, and additions to my collections, in Geology, botany &^c. – If you happen to pass through Litchfield, there is a monument in the Cathedral, which (if you did not see it when exhibited in Somerset house [sic]⁵ last year) would I think please you much, it is to the memory of the children of M^r Robinson, ⁶ sculptured by Chantry, I was highly delighted with it, as also with some of the stained glass, which is particularly fine. –

I am happy to hear of your success at Cambridge though you do not tell me in what way it was. –

Believe me
yours very truly
W. C. Trevelyan

[address panel:]
W. H. F. Talbot Esq^re
31 Sackville Street
Piccadilly
London