PONIATOWSKI STANISLAW: (1754-1833) Polish nobleman, politician and diplomat, a member of the wealthy Poniatowski ...

PONIATOWSKI STANISLAW: (1754-1833) Polish nobleman, politician and diplomat, a member of the wealthy Poniatowski family, cousin of Prinz Jozef Poniatowski (1763-1813, Polish General who became a Marshal of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars) and a nephew of Stanislaw II Augustus (1732-1798, King of Poland 1764-95). Stanislaw Poniatowski served as Grand Treasurer of Lithuania 1784-91, making him a key figure in Poland during the Age of Enlightenment. A.L., unsigned, three pages, 4to, Rome, 11th October 1774, to Revd. Barker. Poniatowski states that he had much pleasure in receiving his correspondent's letter from Florence, and also wishes to have good news from Paris or England, continuing to write of his own recent activities, in part, 'I have so much to write to you about that I do not know where to begin with, this is really the first moment of real sociable pleasure I felt since your departure……The next day after your departure I went to Tivoli, and never was more sorry not to have you with me; really the country out does all description, it is not a large spott (sic) but finer than any we ever saw for natural buty (sic)……the country about Albano is as you know one great rising thrown up by volcanos, there are in it two lakes which seem plainly to have formerly been craters; notwithstanding there is nothing here so striking as a Tivoly, yet the extent and the variety of views which there are follows the hills make it much more fit for a person who intends to spend some time out of Rome: besides that the people seem to be more honest at Albano than at Tivoli……There is a curiosity at Tivoly which one might thinck (sic) of so late date, some thousand years counted but for little, and at so different a kind, that natural history being but the least interesting part of it, it is but with some difficulty it might be classed under that head. I wish I may give you a clear idea of it, it is a wheele (sic) which clearly has formerly existed in the rock of which all the country is formed of. If you thrust the wheel here by ill drawn [at this point in the letter Poniatowski has added an ink sketch of a wheel with four spokes visible] as far as goes the whole lined part into very loose weed which hardens in time and rotts (sic) away the wood of the wheel you will have the best idea of the wholes (sic) left in the rock for there still exist the wholes (sic) which the spokes formerly occupied…..this mould of the wheel would not be as curious a thing, did not the elevation of the rock, a corse (sic) quite different which the waters have taken now make it so…..I wish you had staied (sic) to see it with your own eyes, the whole of this expedition would surely have given you vast satisfaction. I received a letter from Father in which……he repeats with much earnestness his wish to see me back next spring into Polland (sic), I am the less disposed for this that I do not see a sufficient reason for it…..never show my letters because thoug (sic) English I have the impudanse (sic) of sending them without reading them over'. In a postscript Poniatowski provides an intriguing anecdote regarding a murder, in part, 'St. Germain getting into his carriage in the night hits a man with his foot, it was one of the coachmen of the English who in a dispute had been assassinated and was dying, the other coachmen remained upon their seats…..nobody ever thought about giving assistance, because there is a law that the man found with the murdered is strait (sic) set into prison….the story is so inhumain (sic) that it becomes hardly credible'. With integral address leaf addressed to Barker in Bakewell, Derbyshire and bearing a good red wax seal with an imprint of the bust of a man in profile. Some age wear, light staining and a few minor holes, only very slightly affecting a few words of text, G