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MS untraced; text is taken from John Davy (ed.), Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858). Previously published: John Davy (ed.), Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart. (London, 1858), pp. 37–39 [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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My dear Davy – We have been at Minehead this last week; and I am still apprehensive that it will be the boundary of our journey. . . .
This is a fine country; it wants only an open sea, but the sight
of the opposite shore flattens the prospects, and deprives them of that
impressiveness which only immensity can occasion. As we advance, we are promised
a very Paradise – woods, rocks, and a boundless sea – a country little known,
and where no post-chaise can pass. What with carts and double horses, we shall
get on if Edith be but better. Let
me talk with you about Mango Capac.
If we were near enough to admit of daily intercourse, I should
like to undertake the poem with you, because two people, if my opinion be not
ill-founded, would necessarily write a better poem than one, their powers of
poetry being granted and their similarity of opinion; the story should be the
work of both, each take separate parts, each correct the other’s and add to it
whatever ideas occurred to him. When their styles had amalgamated, the work
would have double the merit of the single production of either. It is singular
that this should only have been done by Beaumont and Fletcher.
We shall remain here till Friday next. If you feel inclined to
gratify me with a letter, there is time for its arrival; my direction is at Mrs
Alloway’s, Minehead.