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Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, KESMG 1996.5.71. 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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I ought to have written sooner, – but sometimes other orders of the evening have made put it out of my
power, & sometimes perhaps when it was in my power it has been out of mind. We have been considering concerning my journey to
Durham, – it is cruel weather, – either too cold to move, or too wet for travelling. About the latter end of March Edith expects to be confined,
To days news has blown brought a cloud over me which it is not easy to shake off. We have lost our
two best Generals
for Baird is dead also, this my letters tell me) –
The evil arising from this <his> loss is that it makes a showy story for a Bulletin, – & that it prevents enquiry
into the conduct of the retreat. On the other hand the superiority of our men whenever they have met the enemy has been decidedly
established & puts us out of all fear of the consequences of invasion.
Our conduct from first to last has been one series of blunders, – in which Moore himself has borne a part. I do not
despair of Spain, but this I perceive that nothing effectual for Spain will be done by this country, & that no good is to be hoped
for till we have thoroughly regenerated ourselves. I know not where our political Saviour is to be looked for, but the Signs of the
Times are full. All parties are so despicable that party-spirit in the nation has died a natural death, & there is a wholesomer
feeling in the people of England, than perhaps there ever has been at any former time period.
If your Annuals were but just compleated when you wrote to me, they will be too late for the year for King Thomastwice the double per-sheetage, & perhaps do the business in less time for
whenever I yawn over the text I am sure to sleep over the sermon.
I marvel how you contrive to get on, – yet your practise is rather more, than less than was to be expected, for a first
year, & at your time of life. I have not given in your name to Coleridge, because we may as well spare you the expence:I know, & that he can demonstrate some of our the Gods of our idolatry (Locke for
one)
I have corrected eleven sheets of my first volume, & shall probably have it out in June, – my present work is
transcribing for the press, & filling up skeleton chapters, from such composed of such disjecta membra that it is no
little labour to collect & knot them into one proportioned body.
The Imperial is going or gone with Mrs P. to Madeira, – I fear upon a hopeless voyage. He writes me occasionally two sheets full
of his politics. I skip all this part of their contents, & put the letters behind my bed room glass to serve as shaving paper. –
This reminds me Poor Jackson I am afraid is going very fast –
What we suspected to be angina pectoris proves to have proceeded from a diseased spleen, – which is manifestly enlarged – he gets
little sleep from pain in the shoulder & breast, – he loses flesh, – & his legs begin to swell. We shall be very sorry to lose
him. Mrs Wilson is in excellent health, & almost seems to grow younger. Wordsworth is got into a great house at Grasmere,
y. 28. 1809.