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British Library, Add MS 47890. 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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The box has arrived safe, & your boy & girl with the transferable heads have been the astonishment &
amusement of young & old. They are to be taken such care of, that my grandchildrens grandchildren have a fair chance of having them
handed down in high preservation among the other treasures of the family. – The half binding is very neat & to my taste, – only my
black letter S was understood a little too literally, or rather misunderstood. I did not mean that a common S should be stamped in
black, but that a black letter S should be stamped in gilding, – however this is of no consequence – & I am exceedingly well
pleased with my cargo.
On the very day that the box came, I received two parcels, – this was rather vexatious, inasmuch as three pleasures in
one day are something like a grand dinner after a public breakfast, & then again a great supper after the dinner, – more than one
has room for. – The booksellers as I grow more useful to them become more attentive to me in the way of presents, – which I approve
greatly. I have just had Weber’s Metrical Romances
I have handled the Barrister & his Hints roughly in the last Quarterlyx & for all that follows
respecting Methodism I think you will agree with me. A few passages have been cut out, – one was of some importance – as it recommended
an approximation to the Methodist system, by restoring the old order of Cathechists,upon
<after> Bell’s & Lancaster’s plan. Gifford was afraid of venturing this, – but I shall
find a place for it elsewhere, together with some hints against sermons, which of course I did not propose to the Quarterly.xxxx clearly there that it is
not my opinions which have alterd in any main point, but that different circumstance have given them a different bearing, – they
remaining the same; – in other words that the revolutionary ground of hope is Spain instead of France, & that Buonaparte is the
Antichrist who xxxx xxx the xxx xxxx opposes all amelioration of the state of mankind.
Have you seen Pasley’s Essay on our Military Policy?
You have surely had Kehama
I care little about these Regency disputes,
Send me the ages of your brother Jacks children,
We have had a good deal of sickness among the children, they are recovered thank God, – nevertheless I sometimes wish
King were at hand. Herbert
has an induration of one of the cervical glands – on the right side – it is rather larger than a sixpence – not very hard, &
moveable. It has resisted calomel, & mercurial friction. Ask Rex what we should
do for it? An old fellow collegian of mine who is now also an M.D. of some years standing
Many a happy new year to you.
I must not forget the childrens joyful thanks.