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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. 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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The Bee will make a tit bit of democracy ere long for Edmund Seward.
C Collins told me that you had relinquished your favorite employment of letter writing & I begin to believe him. your last passed one of mine on the road. I have written since that. & now have the paper before me & the pen in my hand without yet hearing from you.
five hours have elapsed since I was obliged to shut my casette but how I can hardly tell you. I have however discovered a very dangerous peculiarity in myself which may get me into some awkward scrapes unless I check it — on a walk thro Bristol streets to pay a long neglected morning visit I read a letter just received & caught myself commenting & rhapsodizing aloud! see how communicative is my disposition — a heart full of romance & a head full too, both beating away most vehemently are very dangerous in the streets. now what there is peculiar to thought meditation or love lorn fancy in folded arms, natural philosophers must determine — my musings were of the agreable order but my arms wanted sadly to cross each other.
there is much more Romance in this world than I imagined Horace & Romance is but another name for goodness — that is if people will look for it — interest interest is dinned into my ears till not only my head aches but my heart too. let the wind whistle as it will I seek the real goods of life & despise (perhaps too much) the artificial blessings. the rude traveller treads on the plant which the Botanist seeks with care — now I am a Botanist in society. curse the tulips turn away from the sunflowers — court the violets & love the roses.
so much for rhapsody. “out of the fullness of the heart the mouth
speaketh.”know how dearly I love letters in spite
of CCs cold investigation of
their inutility. now tomorrow I go to Bath & if you will write
immediately twill be like Manna to a starved wretchd. direct No 8 Westgate
Buildings Bath. never mind tho you should have written to Bristol.
“idleness is the first step of the ladder of iniquity”s by atoms & my sours by tons.
1/2 past 4. I have been reading Cowpers Homer
now one translation being enough for my purpose — I do not transcribe Cowper. can there be a more licentious paraphrase than Popes is of this passage?
I could wish you to translate Lucansubject opportunity to wilder it away.
guathel
my hands ache with the cold & breakfast is preparing. my shirts &c are packing up & momentary interruptions disturb me. write immediately. why not write some odes &c &c? has your brother seen any of Lovells verses? I have two beautiful sonnets of his in my casette for transcription the snowdrop & the nightingale. shall I send them? his verses flow more naturally than mine but I feel pleased at finding a superior. thank God I have neither envy nor ambition.