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British Library, Add MS 30928. 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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I will not talk of this disappointment – for that is of little consequence – nor have I any thing to say respecting the
worst part of your letter. – only remember that in doing your duty something is due to yourself, & that if you reduced yourself to
absolute want it would afford but a temporary Relief to your brother. as therefore no sacrifice on your part could permanently help
him, none ought to be made which should materially inconvenience you, or at all xxxxxxx amerce you of your comforts. All
this I have said to you before – & it will be said I well know by your friends at Bristol. That the creditors are little disposed
to accommodation is probably no evil, certainly less than any false hopes would be which might tempt to a farther trial of plans which
cannot succeed. The war opens the same resources as formerly, & he must submit to a separation from his family as the only possible
means of ultimately providing for them, for in army or navy there may be a chance of obtaining some situation at last which would
secure half-pay.
Your letter was indeed a sad disappointment.I xx in To day I am going to Grasmere on my way to hear John
Thelwall lecture at Kendal, & had calculated upon meeting you before my return. do not however abandon all thoughts of
your journey. it is a cheap road – long coaches all the way. any time till December the country is beautiful.
News from Tom. a recapture which will give him £120 & set him
on his legs for he was behind-hand – & a ship from Hambro
Nine Sheets of Madoc corrected – & I am now in the 8th section of the second part which brings me into the old 8th book & compleats the new part of the poem except one section to be introduced in the eleventh book so that
the labour is over. My Anthology pieces (the best of them) are now to be collected into a little volume – which will probably sell
& yield me at least enough in the course of twelvemonths to pay for a years wine.