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Huntington Library, HM 4842 . 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. 479–483.
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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I am desired by Wilkinsonx Ormathwaite near Keswick) to order the Iris
Having discharged the commission I may take out the knot in my pocket handkerchief & blow my nose in comfort. I feel always a propensity to answer a letter as soon as it is received – a conversational loquacity buds out then which it would be necessary to force when the season is past. For what you say of family losses I am sorry, & should be still more were they of such extent as to necessitate on your part the sacrifice of that leisure so well employed. So well – tho not in the best way possible, for I want from you a work of magnitude proportioned to your powers.
The new situation which Burnett has obtained will end in simply
ousting him from one which suits him better. You who must know his utter & almost unaccountable ignorance of books must know also
how utterly unfit he is for the office of librarian, particularly in a foreign country. His whole stock of bibliography is from
Harwoods duodecimo upon the classics,there any other can be wanted. Burnett has no love of literature for its own sake – he only loves it for the distinction
which it procures. poor fellow I was very anxious about him & very hopeless. this militia situation was the best he could have – it
gave him his quotum of wine every day & practised him in a trade by which he might eventually have lived comfortably, even if he
did not obtain some permanent army appointment. He will now yawn over a Slavonic grammar with his usual dilatoriness till the Polish
nobleman
Your Review of Thalaba
Your advice about Madoc accords very much with my own opinion which I had yielded to friendly importunity. What you say
about a novel does not please me so well – my moral stomach actually turns at the thought. In reviewing a History of the
Methodists
You will I am certain sure, be well pleased with my historysuffer let it want that most useful correction. But I hope we shall tempt you here in the
summer. Skiddaw is an excellent bait.
Something is doing about the Poor, under the management of Poole,
by Rickmans influence – a man somewhat akin to Rickman in intellect, with far less
learning, but perhaps with wider views, the fittest man in the world for his colleague. I have a hope to see Rickman one day in some active situation. this perpetual succession of wretched ministers
makes one ashamed of ones Country. Is not Miltons word Duncery
One thing more de me ipsohave expect an increase of family – after with more fear than hope after a
loss which has gone very deep.