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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p. . Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Ian Packer and Lynda Pratt
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You have bestowed much more thought & trouble upon this Dedicationxx or not, I never will again.
I do not like your beginning, because I have a great dislike to sentiments & to profound respects when they can be
dispensed with & a still greater dislike to indulgent prelections. I do not feel that there is any abruptness in the original
beginning. If you do not like munificent in the first paragraph you may say liberal.
Why did you not send me the proof – I might then the more surely have compared the two than I can do now, for I have no
copy of what was sent you last – I have only the former one of which it was made. As far as I can compare from that & from
recollection the second paragraph is best as it originally stood. The sentence in the third about the improvements in London may be
better in yours I do not perceive any other improvement.every bit of lace & embroidery which you
have tackd on.
In the last paragraph the word grateful has no business.you it you must send me
the proof, tho I shall receive it, with sufficient ill humour, – for x in truth I am provoked to think any portion of time
& consideration should be bestowed on such a subject when the form was once got rid of. And I am sure I can make no material
change.
The King will very seldom see my face, possibly never again.
That I have served his Government in my way, xx xx & am always ready to serve it, he knows & will know. In other
things of less moment, I xxx do him the justice to believe that he xxxx takes the will for the deed.
The “clean sheet” of the P. War
I wish I could persuade you that a Dedication is like a Court suit; – one there must be, but as no person cares of what the suit is composed, nor whether it is becoming or not, except the man who wears it, so no one will ever look at the Ded with a critical eye, except those persons who will wish to detect in it the common-places of adulation
I hope & trust that Gov will prosecute Fellowes
y. 1821