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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. d. 110. 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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Burnett left us on Thursday morning last for Manchester, where he will study two years before he mounts the pulpit. I have a longer course of study to look on to — my rhyming days are almost over — & considering how much I have done I have not been very long about it. tho I am thrown back a year or two I do not regret the time thus occupied — Joan of Arc may give pleasure, & cannot do harm.
Allen has been at the Hot Wells with his wife. she is dying in a consumption. perhaps you may know something of her — her father is Dr Forster of Oxford & she had a brother at Balliol. she was a widow with two children when Allen married her, her fortune enough for herself & them — but he was to support himself. an odd bargain. he behaves to her with the utmost attention. she is a woman of accomplishments — but I hear of dissipation — her physiognomy is bad, & tho he will of course severely feel her loss — I do not think it can be deemd a severe misfortune.
Wynn has been lately with me. I had not seen him since I left Oxford — & you may easily guess what a thousand things we had mutually to communicate. he is at present with great industry & the fairest prospects studying the Law. he enquird for you.
I expected Bedford — but an abscess near the os coccygis unfortunately confined him. the knife of a skilful surgeon has cured him — & he is now going to Hastings for the benefit of Sea Air.
Charles Collins is to be married at Christmas. all the friends who once so highly esteemd & loved him, have now but one opinion of his character — that he is equally vain impertinent cold-hearted & selfish. I know nothing of him but from Wynn & Bedford.
Elmsley (who has twenty thousand pounds of his own) is as fat & as happy & as studious as usual. he serves as a walking Encyclopedia to Wynn — who always refers to him when he wants information. I believe no man has more knowledge — & no man makes a less parade of it. his brother is lately made Governor of Canada,
how infinitely more interesting now do the revolutions in the private
little circle of my own friends appear to me than all the changes that are now convulsing Europe!
my Joan of Arc has been very succesful. I sold the copy-right to Cottle — than whom there does not exist a more excellent man. my own profits have been about eighty guineas. the book has had no friends to assist it — it has however acquired reputation enough. my Letters
This done I am defunct to the literary world. if I live to get into practise & realize a small independance — I may rise again. you see you must expect very little more <few> public accounts <more> of your friend — will you not be equally pleasd with private ones? with hearing from time to time of his situat[MS torn] & I trust — of his happiness?
farewell Lightfoot. I hope we shall meet again one of these days. in the mean time let me hear from you whenever you have leisure.