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Houghton Library, bMS Eng 265.1 (16). 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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To India — Horace! if you have not found happiness among your friends in England do you expect to find it without them in that detestable country? the worthless return from those polluted shores with wealth & honors — I have heard of one great man & only one who adventurd there — & Camoens
tell me my dear Horace would not the frequent company of a friend whose mind met yours — remove half the gloom that darkens the morning of your days? Grosvenor is not that friend — because you live with him. the food of Love is the poison of friendship. I wish I were in London. perhaps I could remove the <religious> doubts that disquiet you. for I have disbelieved. perhaps I could cure your heresy as to Women for I am married.
in other points we should probably agree. I think as badly of the mob of mankind as you can do — but perhaps admit more exceptions to the general rule. you likewise must know how many of our vices & miseries spring from existing institutions. I believe all of them Horace.
in all the anxiety that has fallen to my lot — & I have had my share — literary occupations have afforded me a resource. poetry has been with me a passion & I am indebted to it as well for happiness, as for bread. whilst employed about Joan of Arc I was tempest-tost on the ocean of life — but at the moments of composition — I soard eagle like into the regions of tranquillity above the storm. I was no longer R.S. pennyless — & doubtful of tomorrows dinner with all my <own> feelings I was transplanted into the wise wildness of Conrade — or the dignified resignation of the Maid of Orleans. Horace these pleasures are in your power: I have long laid aside the hypocritical language of compliment. the poetry which you have ever sent me evinces powers capable of greatness. cultivate them Horace. after xx <let us> have ploughed our fields & manure our pasture grounds — but let not the flower garden be neglected. you would be happier if your mind were occupied. why not employ it, till you are more settled, in writing a book if the book be bad burn it when it is done — you will have at least exercised your mind & by exercise only can the mind as well as the body be kept healthful. the water that stagnates will corrupt.
no Horace Ignorance & Vice shall not eternally coexist with Folly. for Folly & Vice are the children of Ignorance, & their existence by a wise mystery linkd to that of their mother. when you are in your heart an Optimist you will be happy. I feel that I can convince you no medium can exist between Optimism & Atheism — & Atheism is a self-evident absurdity.
if you want a book — read St Pierres Etudes de la Nature.r Reid & Lodgedrive a pair. a volume of poems is advancing as well as my letters. I expect more praise than profit — Joan of Arc sells slowly. a matter of consequence to me only as it retards a second edition. the book has had no friends to push it. my private list of subscribers did not amount to thirty — & of these nine were from the relations of my dear Edmund Seward — a man whom I must always love & lament.
I shall live a secluded life in London. probably without ever making another friend. the repellent coldness of my silence manners will protect me from any acquaintance. for I cover the milk of human kindness with as coarse <rough> an outside as the Cocoa nut.
Your brother has talkd to me of a club. I wish to decline it — tho perhaps in vain. notoriety is not comfortable Horace. if ever I reach the cot of Independance — I will prefer changing my name to being persecuted.
if Jupiter
the married man.