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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Previously published: John Holland and James Everett, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James Montgomery, 7 vols (London, 1854–1856), III, pp. 66–68 [in part].
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 first thing I have to say relates to Wordsworth. I put
into his hands your review of the Excursion & he desired me to tell you how much he was gratified by it, – by the full &
liberal praise which it awarded him, – by the ability & discrimination which were shown, but above all by the spirit which it
breathed, which is so unlike the prevailing tone of criticism.will live’ (39). It did, however, express reservations about the poem’s lack
of religious sentiment: ‘The love of Nature is the purest, the most sublime, and the sweetest emotion of the mind … yet the love of
Nature alone cannot ascend from earth to heaven’ (19).
Secondly, – but first in importance, – now that the fine season is arrived, will you fulfil in summer the purpose which
was frustrated in autumn, & come to visit me? Neither you nor I need be reminded of the uncertainty of life, – xxxxx we
are now neither of us young men, & if we suffer year after year to pass by, we may perhaps never know each other in the body:
xxxxx I want to have the outward & visible Montgomery in my minds eye, the form & outline & tangible image of
my friend. Come! & come speedily. There is a coach from Leeds to Kendal, but whether daily or only thrice a week, I do not know;
you can easily learn this at Sheffield. From Kendal here, there is one every weeks-day in the morning, which will bring you here by
twelve o’clock. Write, – & fix the time for coming: Wordsworth, who is
now in London, will probably be home in about a fortnight, & both he & Lloyd (with whom you will be much interested) are very desirous of seeing you.
I think your objection to the warlike part of Rodericks character is not well founded; – it would be so if I had
designed <him> as a model of Christian perfection, & yet tho wars are most unquestionably forbidden by the Gospel, there are
wars of that description in which it is allowable to take part, – unless we suppose that even self-defence is unlawful, which is an
absurdity.xx what was then the universal, & is still the general belief that he was doing his duty in making
war against the cruel enemies of his country with all his heart, & with all his soul & with all his strength. – If I proceed
with Oliver Newmanxxxxxxxxx xxxxx instinct, & after leading Oliver thro
many trials of patience place him in a situation wherein it becomes his clear duty to cut a man down with a tomahawk. You exhort me to
take an English story, & I would fain do so, if our history offered one to my satisfaction: but I have often & often revolved
it in my mind without success. At present I am wholly occupied in prose, – my concluding volume of the history of Brazil is in the
press,
The apprehensions under which you last wrote are fully confirmed, & Europe is once more involved in war by the
ambition of a single individual, whom I verily believe to have accumulated a heavier load of guilt upon his soul than any human being
ever did before him.believe persuade myself that this is
permitted in order to draw upon him & his atrocious army & that guilty city of Paris the punishment due to their crimes. The
game which he is now playing proves his weakness, which he must feel very severely before he could court the Jacobines & affect to
talk xxx <of> liberty.
I thought you would be pleased with the party whom I directed to you in the autumn. Lady Olivia Sparrowxxx <where> I was unlucky enough to sleep in the room with him.that the boy whom she then introduced to me as her
son,
The sale of Roderick has exceeded my expectations, a third edition is going to press, the first was 500 copies, the
second 1500.