Letter from Rome giving detailed account of his visit to Ischia, his illness and then delay there over Christmas, the worry of his friends at Naples, his ascent of Vesuvius with Colonel Rawden and the Marryats, and his account of the eruption which took place some hours after their descent on 1 January 1839. The Duke of Buccleuch - met in Rome - has commissioned a picture of the eruption, and the Duchess a picture of Amalfi. (No such oil of the eruption is yet known, or any of Amalfi still with an obvious Buccleuch provenance: PvdM 9/20)