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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. 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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It is said that when a woman has any business to write about it always comes in in the postscript – my own nature is quite opposite. & the reason that makes me write must come first.
I received from Corry my first quarters salary in advance – 87 £
English according to the then exchange. travelling has consumed 50 £. to remove my mother from Bristol has cost me 15–. I need not
state other items. London xxxx doubles my expenditure. I know not from what time my secretaryship is to
date – if from my first meeting Corry – ten weeks have elapsed. if from his summons
– the quarter wants but a few days of its fulfillment – but a second payment cannot be expected before the end of the six months. –
send me one draft – & I will make it last till April by what else I can get from newspapers & reviews. – then – receiving the
salary at the end of the term, & the heaviest expences & embarrasments being overcome – I shall go on well while the sinecure
continues, & will never be unjust enough to receive what I do not want. my dear Wynn it was this hope that made me joyfully connect myself with Corry. it
is only this that makes me regard the probable breach of that connection with regret. – In my last I laid open my dreams & wishes
for the future – another year will lessen my expences – but at a heavy price. – my
Cousin Margarett is gone! – I have just paid part of her death expences – xxxxx – I hardly
knew how like a sister she was to me before. my Mother is going – unless some
sudden amendment appears – a few weeks – or even days must compleat the dissolution. all claims upon me for exertion will soon
cease.
I never saw xx <so> quiet & easy a decline. the spirits still remaining –
xx enough of hope, yet still a forefeeling of the event – but without fear. – I thought to have
written of other things – but this possesses me – & these feelings are best kept to oneself. my own system leads me to avoid all
painful feelings when we may avoid them – of course when they come there is no need to communicate them –