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Cornell University, Healey 3115. 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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Both cheese & rug have at last arrived in safety – they parted company on the road, & the latter was left a week at Kendal, for the carriers convenience. – I would not write to thank you for them till both had made their appearance. The cheese is in course of eating, & an excellent specimen it is of the produce of my native county.
Great things have been done in Spain since the date of your letter. I myself, since the insurrection in Madridxxx excited pity & regret in the subject, rather than
hatred <resentment>. The relaxation of criminal justice passed for lenity, – & the people even took a pride in
the Despotism which had become inoffensive, – King Lion on a velvet cushion, showing his teeth only when he yawn’d, & his claws
only when he stretched himself, is of all objects of political devotion that which would most be admired by a people who can bear with
any King at all; – & the constant tendency of all monarchies towards despotism is because the people are ashamed of King Log.s of what their fathers were, an exultation at the
mention of old times, accompanied with an expression of regret & shame, yet not without hope, – which no person can ever have
witnessed without a conviction that the degeneration of those countries was at hand. Their very religion, amid fopperies & follies
which pr excite a smile in every stranger, & abominations which an xxxx enlightened Christian cannot regard
without humiliation & sorrow, – has yet with it a life & ardour which it is impossible to contemplate without wonder, – I might
almost say without respect. Never was any idolatry so fitted to the wants of weaknesses & wishes of human nature, – never was any
mythology so rivetted & rooted in the hearts of the people.
Bonaparte has not done all the work which I hoped he would do. The house of Austria is not swe yet swept
from the earth, – & the Cross is not yet replaced upon the dome of St Sophias.
The real cause why my Historyxxx
very often use the present tense for the future, & the fact is that the Book is not yet in the press, – but waiting for rags from
the continent. The paper for the Cid
I have not seen the reviewal of Marmion.
Edith joins me in remembrances to Mrs S. Miss Bayley