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Beinecke Library, Osborn C18th Bound MSS, Osborn fc 76, vol 2, item 152. 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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Seeing your volumethe xxxx
they xxxxx xxxx xxxx the conviction which they left upon my mind was that I had never seen a first volume
publication which augured so well. It gives me very sincere pleasure to add that Wordsworth, who happens at this time to be my guest, perfectly agrees with me in this opinion, – there is no other man living
whose opinion is worth so much.
An edition of Grays work which should give us more of his correspondence, & trace the imitations in his poetry
would be exceedingly valuable.r Wharton(or at least of the family of the present Sec. of the Treasury,
Mr Coleridge once expressed an opinion to me that the AchilleidMocedades
xxx now long since I have had leisure for classical studies. The age is over in which it was
possible for a man to be make himself an universal scholar, & know all that was known in Europe. In our days there must
be a division of learning as well as of labour. There are many things which I must be <am> content never to learn,
& classical learning is among those which I must be contented to forget. The most melancholy feeling which the lapse of time has
brought with it to me is that I have much to do, & the day is short.
You say you have no participator of your studies. – look on it is t[MS torn] peculiar blessing of literary
pursuits that they can be enjoyed without participation. By following them with ardour & with perseverance I have made myself far
happier than any other circumstances could possibly have made me. – Go on as you have begun, – write always to your own judgement
whether it be that <the taste> of the day or not, & content yourself with the approbation of the few. The better
your write, the fewer you will please at first; – but praise thus obtained goes on <increases> in the ratio of
compound interest, whereas they who are paid in present popularity receive <exhaust receive> their whole
capital at once.