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Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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My summer season is in good part taken up by friends who come to these uttermost parts of the North to visit me, &
by laying in a stock of exercise which lasts me during a bodily hibernation of six months, but I even during this
butterfly’s holyday I have fits & heats of hard work, without which the press would outrun me, & I should outrun my means.
There has been another & more valid reason why ten weeks have been let pass since the date of my last letter, – it was likely that
I should soon be able to say when I should leave this place on my way to London, & consequently when I should have the
gratification of halting at Litchfield, – instead of eyeing the outside only of its noble Cathedral while the stage changed horses, –
as I once did heretofore.
The Critical Reviewer of Madoc is the same person who has spoken in the same spirit of Wordsworths late volumes. I have seen neither article, so that in the main object of
giving pain to me he has failed, – as indeed he would under any circumstance, for I am used to these things. His name is Le Grice,on
the now an inhabitant of some better world than ours. We there met this Le Grice: – he was unusually courteous towards me,
& I as unusually repulsive towards him, for never had I seen a man whose whole temper of mind appeared to me so thoroughly
perverted & mischievous. Every thing was made the subject of his ridicule, & he seemed to have laughed himself out of every
good principle & every good feeling. Considerable talents he had, but only in this miserable direction: his face was as white as a
Ghosts, & in this dead <clayey> & unexpressive face were set two jet black eyes, forming so strange &
hideous a contrast, that literally & truly that face was the original from whence I described the dead countenance of Donica
animated by a Devil.
I am very very much indebted to you for what you have done with the Critical Review. Mr
FellowesI cannot wither one laurel leaf, – it
may mildew a whole crop of corn.
That note of Mr Fs. gives me what I looked for in your own letters in vain, – an account of your
health, – but it is a sad one. He recommends distilled water. I am afraid this is but a whim taken up by women of fashion: – & am
certain that water distilled in any metallic vessels must be far more impure than <from a> common spring we or pump.
You who knew Darwin
Of Lady Wortleys letterssupp believing they were not what were praised or remembered. Her letters from Italy are
what delighted me, – so did those written to Mr Wortleyxxxxxxx xxxxx <it> & of her own poor heart is a melancholy one. It is
not therefore that I like her better than all other letter-writers, but her letters appear to me more natural
(according to her nature) & full of better sense, her views of life considered than those of any one else. – I thank you for the
passage concerning Madocs voyage; – there is a great mass of evidence to prove the existence of Welsh-Indians in America, – whenever I
can afford the time I will collect it to be prefixed to some future edition of the poem.