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Keswick Museum and Art Gallery, KESMG. 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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The box arrived last night in a deplorable condition, broken to pieces, & held together only by one cross cord. I
hope & believe nothing is lost, – the Noticias
Pople’s promise to you was too outrageous to be credible, – Printers are as bad
as ministers in these things. I have had but one proof as yet of the last chapter,
Kehamaxxxx I have devised means of sending it to her sheet by sheet, in the hope that being read in this way it may have some
thing of the sweetness of stolen waters & bread eaten in secret. I will get Sharp to receive it in London & frank it on. Wynn is not
stationary,–& my two Emperors of the Franks,
This ponderous life of Nelson is consigned to me for the Quarterly, Gifford offers me twenty guineas per sheet to review it, & hopes I will fill three sheets.
You probably remember an absurd set of queries sent by Stanier Clarkexxx <now that> this Arch Ignoramus by dint of impudent quackery has made himself so
conspicuous. The Nelson papers he obtained by mere importunity, after he had proved himself a blockhead by his history of Maritime
Discovery. That history came under my lash in the Annual, being without exception the worst book in proportion to its pretensions that
I have ever seen.
I got yesterday in a box from Bristol among a few other books from a provincial Catalogue a vol. of miscellanies by
your old schoolmaster Collins,
I have just looked enough at your papers to be astonished at the time & labour which they must have xx
cost you. The box came when I had a sick head-ache, a complaint to which ever since my return from Lisbon I have been about as subject
as you are, but in a less violent degree. The effects are not yet gone off owing to the tremendous storm last night which prevented me
from sleeping, – so that head-ache has made me idle away the day, – & this letter is one of the fruits of idleness.
I shall visit you more conveniently at Streatham than at Staunton, & you will be at hand to give an eye to the Catalogues, – these are the conveniences which reconcile me to your change of residence. – that & the neighbourhood to Mrs Gonne whom I verily believe to be one of the sweetest women that ever God made. If you settle yourself there in the summer I shall probably make you a visit towards the close of autumn, having my town-bed at Rickmans, when I dine in London.
––
D’Anville’s paper
My Preface will be very short – in the form of an advertisement, chiefly to say that I am in possession of numerous MSS – documents, – & that an account of all the materials will be given in an appendix. The regular Preface must be reserved for the Hist. of the Mother Country. – I think of giving a list of the few books which I want; – it will be very likely to procure some of them.
Tom has got for me the American Madoc which was published in numbers at
Boston.
There is nothing amiss in the Life of Nelson, except its being called a Life, for it consists of almost wholly of
extracts from his Letters & Journals, given to such an extent & in themselves so minute, that it would have been far better to
have called the book the Nelson Papers, & added the little xx original matter as notes & brief introductions – in
short, xx xxxx for Mr Clarke & his coadjutor to have been Editors & not authors. As a collection of documents it is
valuable, – but certainly as a Life too bulky & in nine parts out of ten too minute to be read upon unimportant subjects
to be read.
Ld Grenville ought not to have been Chancellor, – but they look to him as
X soon to be x minister & maker of Bishops Deans & Chapters.
Have you seen that a party are travelling from the Cape to Mozambique, xx xxx to explore the country?