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. Previously published: E. Betham, A House of Letters (Norwich, 1905), pp. 136–137 [in part].
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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You will think it very odd if I should prove the means of suiting your brother with a farm.
Landor has land to let upon an improving lease. It is in the vale of Ewias,
where Lanthony Abbey stands, & where he is building a house for himself. Abergavenny is
the market town, – at a distance of nine miles. Now I should tell you that a brother of Mrs Wordsworths
land <soil> is the best possible. Xx
– I have been looking over my letters to find the exact words of Landor himself. “I have several hundred acres to let instantly for a pound an acre, tithe free, extremely small parochial rates, a lease for 21 years, but after the first ten, a rise of four shillings per acre. Many thousands of land to be inclosed at 3/shillings for the first 10 years, six for the remaining, – a rail now forming within a mile along a level to the market-town – lime & marl on the estate, & underwood sufficient for all the new inclosures, which will be given. I hope to get a scientific tenant for about 1600 acres. He shall have every encouragement, but he should have 6 or 7000£.”
There are his words. Should your brother think it worth while to write, his address is Walter Savage Landor. – Lanthony, Abergavenny. Let him use my name as an introduction. Were Lanthony not quite so far from town I should advise him to go there <& see it>. It is a beautiful but very lonely spot. There would be no society there, – except Landor himself, – but then you know there is but one Landor in the world.
I saw Richters
Since our return I have got on xx with Pelayo,th. – The Moon has the same face, with a less healthy appearance, than
when you used to make him sit on the floor for his picture. We are all going on well thank God. I have been writing on the business of
Bell & the Dragon
in the Quarterly,
God bless you. As this is a letter of business I shall not delay it by sending it cruising for a frank. Ediths love.