TALBOT906

Sackville Street ¹
1. Jan^r 1821

My Dear Henry

I am very glad You like the idea. Louisa ² has built a very pretty one for L’enseignement mutuel ³ at Bowood, ⁴ something like a Swiss cottage, & I understand it cost about £100. There is one other thing I think you will like to do, which perhaps I had better explain vivâ voce, ⁵ it concerns a Benefit Society, a club of labourers of Laycock village & neighborhood of which money was borrowed & never repaid – this is one of the few debts I should advise you to take voluntarily on yourself, being both popular & strictly just to do so – how it happened that the poor in this case should have been sufferers I can better tell you when we talk it over. My Father ⁶ was very earnest that I should as your Guardian take upon my self from the beginning of your minority to pay all the debts amounting to above £20 thousand pounds, but this I felt I had no right to do, as many of the creditors had no possible claim upon you & many had compromised all the correspondence – & papers upon these subjects I am now going to look for, that you may see them when you come to town. I only arrived last Night from Highclere ⁷ so have not had time yet. Porchester ⁸ is gone to pass the Winter at Nice, for his health. Did I tell you of our visit to Stourhead? Whe[re]⁹ Sir Richard Hoare ¹⁰ attacked me for Something in the tower at Laycock Abbey that is quite necessary to his history of Wiltshire, & at the same time informed me that the said tower is haunted. M^r Paley is Son of the Archdeacon, ¹¹ who never got any further promotion in the Church because he was an Author & the late King ¹² had a prejudice against him, Lord Lansdowne ¹³ recommended him to us merely because he thought it a shame the son of Paley should be nothing but a curate, so I am very glad he has turned out so well

Yrs aff^ly
EF

I wish that cold examination was over –

William Henry Fox Talbot Esq^r
Trinity college
Cambridge