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. Previously published: J. W. Robberds (ed.), A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich, 2 vols (London, 1843), I, pp. 465-468.
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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You will see by the date above, that I have travelled westward from London. I had some thought of advancing to Norwich, but the plan which I am about to communicate has made me delay that till I be settled nearer.
I have projected, & negociated with Longman & Rees, & now actually undertaken the management of a Bibliotheca Britannica.subject – author hath written in any
language but English. the page 40 lines. the full & absolute choice of all associates & the distribution of the whole to be
mine.
Now the first important point is to allot to every one that for which he is most fitted – & then to turn over the
papers of one to another to collect as much as can be had upon the subject. I am thus stocked with certain associates, for Saxon &
Welsh Sharon Turner who has found out that he writes badly. for early voyages
& all Science thereunto appertaining Captain Burney. for old surgery Carlisle. for xxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxxx for Roger
Bacon,s down to the conquest fall under Turners knowledge. Will you help me? & bring your stock of northern knowledge & of
theology to bear upon the history of English literature. What I would ask from you is to at write upon
the progress of the language – upon the history of our popular superstitions – upon the English history of religion – a little more
covertly this last than you do for the Magazine,
We talk of getting a first part – that is a half volume, ready by Xmas 1804. I go to reside near London for this
express purpose. xx there can be no difficulty in getting out a volume yearly, & as little of the
success of the book if well managed. I calculate upon it for an income of from 200 to 250 £. & shall remove to Richmond, where John May has already obtained for me the refusal of a house.
The review of Mrs Lathoms Poem
My politics are that France calculated upon the weakness of our most miserable ministers, & was carrying on a
system of insult & injury to which it would have been utter ruin to have submitted. that Bonaparte