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British Library, Add MS 30927. 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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Here I am at length once more by my own fireside, thank God. I had left Streatham when your letter arrived there, & as I was ever on the move between Richmond,r Castle in this way have secured a provision for them!
Our stay in & about London was much discomforted by the frequent ailments & illness of Edith May; & on her account we were compelled to give up all our promised visits on
the way homeward, & take the straightest road, halting only for half a day at Nottingham. Here however we are: she bore the journey
better than xx I had expected, & the return to home habits & mountain air seems xx immediately to have
restored her. I find my table covered with letters, & have a world of business to get thro. My first task must be to produce a
poem, which is planned much to my liking upon the battle of Belle-Alliance. You may be sure there will be no battle in the poem. Why I
call it Belle-Alliance & not Waterloo you shall know when I have more leisure, – thereby hangs a tale which will not a little
surprize you.
The young ones are all in high health. We brought back store of play things for them & you never saw a happier
household. I have purchased books pretty largely, – to the amount of about 300 volumes, – among which are the Acta Sanctorum 52
folios,
I saw few strangers in town, – never so few on any former visit; – for I confined myself as much as possible to my
friends. The last day of my residence there I dined in company with Mina, – this was an important introduction which I sought.mor happiest circumstance which could have
befallen him, that I should write the history of transactions in which he has been so deeply involved. He gave me much information,
which in almost every point confirmed the judgement that I had previously formed.
This is a hasty letter – My poem
In the way of business, let me know the weight of the cheese for the mice eat half by the way,
& I am at war with the carrier to recover damages.