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. 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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Thank God I have at last accomplished the business of settling my
mother, a business which three months ago I almost feared would be impracticable. I write to you from Westbury, one of the villages at the end of Durdham Down, two miles from Bristol. the house I
have taken for her is a very old one. but my revolutionizing hand has already removed much rubbish & added some conveniences. there
is a garden large enough to supply our table, & the back view is extensive, & as beautiful as a prospect can be without any
characteristic sublimity, which has only hill, & wood vale, & wood to vary it.
I cannot tell you from what a weight I feel relieved by this change in her situation. Edith too is evidently better. We are as busy as you may conceive, but the fatigue of preparing future comfort is itself almost comfortable. I hope my mother may like the place enough, & find it agree with her health so well, as to make it her continued home. I should like to make it the place of my summer visit, & feel when in London that I had also a home in a pleasanter place.
We came here only on Monday; in a few days I hope all bustle will be over, & I shall quietly settle into
regularity. It is a long time since you have written. In my last I enquired for your brother
I thought to have seen Wales this summer & had expected much pleasure. other reasons however make me willingly give
up the plan, & excepting a visit to Hereford & its neighbourhood I shall be stationary here till we remove again to London.
my mother will receive a regular small income from her brother, but it has been her removal from Bath has
been a heavy expence, & for a short time I keep house. I now believe she will recover her health. indeed the prospect before me is
fairer than I ever remember it.
My Letters
If you have an Anthologia
— ιεςου υπυου;
Κοιμαται, θνησκειυ μη λεγε τουγ αγαθους
I have forgotten the beginning of the hexameter.
I saw your name in the debates
Direct as usual to Cottles.