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BL Add. MS 28268, ff. 275–76
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editors wish 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.
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I should indeed be sadly ashamed of this long disrespectful silence had I not unfortunately a tolerable excuse to urge, which, though I write in extreme pain, shall not make its appearance until the fag end of the epistle.
The first thought that came across my mind on the receipt of yours was, a glow of self approbation, for having by some means or other so far obtain'd your good wishes as to induce you in hurry, and on business, and in the midst of a journey to think of me and to steal time to write. You must certainly take a pleasure in oblidging, and that is the very essence of all that is good upon earth, as far as earth is concernd.
The Cheddar Cliffs have taken up a nook in my heart, and imagination scratches a picture of her own, like an old Hen in a garden.
I had taken a momentary dislike to Old Scoop,Stinchcombe trembled at the
sound.much to
be sore the work out-doneMendip, and the western
shore,Nympsfield, on the upland
plain,Owlpen, by the dark wood
side,altogether to be ridiculed.
I have a great mind to keep him alive.
Have you ever seen two or three local publications by Mr Heath a
printer at Monmouth? A fund of information may be glean'd from them all
immediately relating to our late expidition to paradice. Historical and minute
descriptions relative to Kyrle, to Ross, Willton Castle, Goodrich, Coldwell,
&c &c told in a plain tradesman like
stile.
st
My eldest
Daughter has just return'd from an eight weeks residence in Suffolk at
the very Farm that employ'd me in my childhood. She has seen the Harvest, and
was present at the 'Horkey' and with many of the persons who figured there
thirty years ago when I was 13 years old. There is a fund of gossip cut out for
me during the winter coming. She return'd on the 24th, the
next day you may recollect is sacred to our Leather Saint,
and is besides her birthday.
I have been forced to read a large Volumn
which has in the end given me much pleasure. Dr Parkinson's 'Organic Remains of
the Antediluvian World,' treating of the transformation of vegetable substances
into stone and Cole &c.
What joy it must be to you to come home to your children and find them well! For yourself it appears that travelling agrees with you, and you should take the remedy upon all possible occasions.
One day in the Winter Summer when
for a long time I had heard nothing from Clare Hall or from Fullham, I
trudged to the latter place and found that Mrs Sharp had much recoverd, and that the family were then at Wicken. While on the bridge I saw a
most beautiful sight. A Rain bow of most singular strength and breadth of
colours; it appeared in the east, the right foot resting on the surry shore,
just on the bank, so that the tide being full, and the water unruffled, its
shadow was quite as perfect as itself and form'd nearly a
circle, thus. [sketch of a circle]. The house on the right bank has a white
front which the prismatic colours renderd more striking than any thing I ever
observed of the kind. I have had a very kind letter from Mr Cooper pray put in a word for me
there if I should be mention'd. I look with much anxiety towards the health of
Charlotte. And how is Mr Baker? Will he change his
Gout for my Rhumatism? You see here that grumbling must come in at last.
November is a trying month to me. I have been a week totally disabled from work,
or from resting above ten minutes in a place. I hope nevertheless to tell you a
better story soon. My sincere respects are due to Mr & Mrs Baker, and tell Catharine and
Mary Ann that if my back does not mend shortly I shall for a certainty forget
all my dancing. And with welsh scenery in my imagination and welsh [word
deleted] flannel to my skin I am, Dear Madam your very much oblidged, but tardy
friend,
P. S. I have this minute been reading your letter to my daughter and she
naturally ask'd on the mention of your Aunt James S. 'which Mrs S. is that'. I reflected for the first
time, and that for the first time carried me to Clare Hall, for I had fixd the
reference to Durham, and your friends there—It may be possible that Mrs Sharp and Catharine are now with you. If
they are what a most brilliant figure I should make at an apology at the
table! I have rather wonderd that I have heard nothing from Barnett, and been sadly unwilling to
believe that any other cause for it than absence could have been found,
where people write so frankly as we do, This is however a hole in a dark
staircase; a light thrown on the subject. I therefore charge you with my
love to All tog together —
* See the beginning of the original MSS of Banks of Wye T J Ll B [note added by T. J. Lloyd Baker]