- Physical form: One half sheet folded into 2 leaves (16 x 20 cm); fol 2r is blank
- Cover: Miss Rickards / Hampstead / Middlesex
- PM: 7o’Clock / 21 JU / 1802 N.T. [another, too blurred to read, but probably Penny Post Unpaid]
- WM: None
- SM: Misc MS 4350
We are very much obliged to you & to Mrs Rickards, dear Lydia, by your kind offer of a bed, but our time in London
(1)
"our time in London": The Barbaulds stayed in London for ALB's birthday, June 20.
is now so short that we cannot accept of it, particularly as we expect company to dinner the next day. It is a strange thing to be shut up in a crowded town this weather,
(2)
"this weather": Alluding, again, to the exceptional cold in the Spring of 1802.
I begin to be ashamed of it, yet there are enow to keep us in countenance, for the streets are still as crowded as if it were the height of the London season. The Thames will, I suppose, present a very fine scene
on
[fol 1v] on Wednesday.
(3)
The Thames would present "a very fine scene" as part of the General Thanksgiving for the Peace of Amiens (October 1801), which ended the first war with France. The Thanksgiving was proclaimed by the King in April 1802 (Gentleman's Magazine, 91 [April 1802]: 358).
If you have any friend’s house from which you can see it, I would advise you to come. We have a bed[.]
Your’s affly
AL Barbauld
Monday morn
