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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3. 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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Your letter has arrived at a time when I am too uncomfortable for any other occupation than answering it. Ediths brother is here, – in a very bad state of health – & yesterday he broke a blood
vessel: after bleeding about a pint & half at the mouth the hæmorrhage stopt, – Edmundson bled him afterwards & the blood was in a very inflammatory state, – this evening he seems & feels worse
& I am in momentary fear that the hæmorrage will return. – To persons not used to such things the sight is frightful, – & tho I
put xxx xxxx xxx endeavoured with some success to allay his apprehensions & his sisters,
I will desire Bedford to send you what xxx
more he has of Roderickth – books will go to London under the same frank-imperial as which
carries this. I have begun the 11th – this is being rather more than half way thro. – Bedford is one of those men who is always <are> more especially
than others in the predicament noticed in our liturgy of leaving undone those things which they ought to have done, & – which they
intend to do. Hence his inattention to you. My London acquaintances are very numerous, – my friends but few. Elmsley who would have been solicitous to offer you any civilities in his power lives
thirteen miles from town at St Mary Cray. Wynn is in Wales,
& be he where he wherever he is, he is always as Elmsley most
happily said of him at Oxford, doing something else. There is no one for whom he has a sincerer regard than he has
for me, & yet I have been in London for four or five weeks & he has never asked me to dinner. This apparent indifference or
neglect is usual with him, & gives great offence to his Welsh neighbours, who impute it to his Grenville blood.do begin doing half a hundred things before he put his breeches on, & who used to have
books – pen – ink – & paper – breeches, xx galluses, neckcloth, & rolls & butter all upon the breakfast table at
the same time.
When I come to London, which I shall work hard to accomplish by the end of April, I will take you to Sotheby& bring them to you xx – they keep gay houses at which it is fit that a physician should be seen. That you will
succeed I have no doubt whatever, & that, early enough to feel yourself still a young man when you are enjoying success. I am
nearly ten years older your senior, & older in habits & feelings, & perhaps constitution than in years: you will
be up the ladder before I shall, & yet I hope to enjoy myself at the top.
The last xx xx portion of the Nelson mss.more <as much> with a view to Toms interest as for the civilities which he has shown me – indeed they may be called more
than mere civilities, for without solicitation he am able am lucky enough to get out of his hands the 200£ which I have
embarked in the concern.reputation value is on the rise. As for Roderick,xxx <must>
decline is as certain as that there are rules by which composition may be must be tried. He may & probably
will produce other poems as good as his first, but it is out of his power to produce better. Perhaps I x may be
in the same case, – still there would be a difference, – for he has had little to do with feeling, & less with thought.
The scheme to which I look on as the sheet anchor of my new ways & means, is a view of the revolutions of the last
fifty years, in all places & in all things, – under some such title as the Age of George 3.x the Pisgah-Viewt my various reviewals
convertible into this form.
You ask if I remember Paul.near <like> it. He was about a
year my senior. I knew nothing little of him at school, & nothing after he left it, except that he became so purse-proud
as to make himself ridiculous.
In my next I will put look out for you my memoranda about consumption
y 3. 1813.
When you have done with the six books of Roderick convey them to my Uncle.