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Bodleian Library, Eng. Lett. c. 24. 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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It was well that Giffords very handsome letter inclosing sweet
remuneration in the shape of L 21.13. arrived a few hours after the Quarterly itself. For when I beheld the cruel mutilation which my
poor article had suffered,no xxx xxx cut every thing down to the standard of
orthodoxy, – in spite of all former experience of the sow-gelding propensities of Review-Editors, I was on the point of vowing a vow
that nothing should ever again induce me to send my opinions to be for revision & correction at xxx
<an> Inquisition. Anger does not last long with me; – it is some comfort that he has only implied for me an
assent to Doctrines which I disbelieve, for that <had> there been an express belief asserted, that, even I, should not
have borne. So upon taking into consideration the number of sound & orthodox divines, Doctors, Deans, yea haply Bishops, – who
on will read this good Review with their wigs on, I began to think him not unwise in expunging things which might have
made those wigs start off, abhorrent of my heresies. I have returned an answer of perfect acquiescence; – observing only that the
printer has jostled one paragraph out of its place, & that the beginning of another is made nonsensical, by the omission of what
proceeded it in the Manuscript.
The Cid is ill done.words which I have misunderstood? would they not have been pointed out if the Reviewer had
known them? – Scott himself knows little of Spanish, & of Spanish Literature
nothing more than what D Quixote,glass legged i electricians stool, brimfull of borrowed fire, – touch what he will & light comes from him, – but let
him sit in a common seat <chair>, & his fingers are mere flesh & blood. When he reviewed the Cid he was not
charged.
The Quarterly is as bad in its spirit of criticism as the Edinburgh,
I did not mean that any account of Spanish literature &c was needful or even that it could be properly introduced,
– but that if you wished to have any specific information it was likely I could give it you.the about the
style that it is what the original naturally ran into, – for half what will be called Hebraisms are literal Hispanicisms. The Chronicle
of the Kings of Spain were written under circumstances very similar to the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, & the manner of
narration is most remarkably alike.
Murray sent me the Number by itself, & the parcel <carriage>
cost 5/3 – a cheap way of getting a present. I shall desire him next time to delay it till it can be inclosed in a parcel. Gifford tells me I am to have L Valencias Travels.