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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. 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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Grosvenor we shall soon meet — & perhaps never seperate again. we are setting out on the same journey — & if one of us or both be not knocked up on the road, I trust we shall arrive together at the end. I shall see you soon — probably within a month or three weeks —.
how is it that we have changed characters? you so anxious — I so tranquil. is it that I am advanced one stage beyond
you in the way of the world? that I have seen more & suffered more? you have been settled comfortably at home trotting from Brixton to Palace Yard after breakfast, & from Palace Yard to Brixton before dinner, your relations happy in you, happy in yourself, without wants, almost
without wishes. is not the picture faithful? shall I describe the contrast xx or leave you to supply
it? after travelling such different xxxx different paths we have met at the
same last.
So you are at your mysteries again! for my part I never dive into darkness. I shall precede Edith to secure look out for lodgings myself — & in that
case if you can give me “a sofa & spare blanket” — in Palace Yard, shall comfort myself on the long cold road by expecting to find
you & a pot of porter at the conclusion.
my Poems
Tuesday evening.
the Poems are just arrived. I send three — for you — Horace — & your Mother to whom at the same time remember me with
respectful kindness. I will trouble you to send the other two copies by the parcel post. the one is for the author of those
incomparable Sonnets on Metaphor & Personification.