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National Library of Wales, MS 4819E. 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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A Ballad
Shewing how an Old Woman rode double, & who rode before her.
________
the story in the xxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx <Liber Cronicarum> printed at Nuremberg 1498,
with a wood cut; in Olaus Magnus, & more at large in Matthew of
Westminster.
________
_____________________________________
You ask me respecting your brothers inscriptions.rs Burrows & Armitt
I shall be in town the 13th of next month.
Blackstone Coke & Bootego enter an office. When I see you I will talk
more fully upon the subject. I cannot move freely; my mother is with me, & a cousin, a poor girl, disabled by
the frequente returns of a disease almost as
dreadful as the leprosy, from providing for herself. my brother Harry too has only me to look
to. from my Uncle I expect some
assistance, but as yet have had none, & he has not much in his power. with
these expences I have kept pace, & can support them, but it is only by
giving up more time to, to money [MS obscured] scribbling than it would be right
in other circumstances to give. on this account I add pieces enough to my Vision
to make a second volume,
My brother Tom is on
board Lord Bridports
ship.succeed <turn out> as well. Nature has done
much for them
I think it would be well if I could get a play upon the stage.
this is mentioned not as a serious thought yet – but what would be one if you
encouraged it. you know with what rapidity I write – after chusing a subject it
would not employ me more than a month. this is the only profitable mode of
writing – here the profits are more than they ought to be, for every thing else
less. the profits of a play are from 2 to 700 pounds. do you think it a lottery
worth adventuring in? my name would forward it with a manager, & might be
kept secret not to injure it with the Anti Jacobines & English Orange men. I
think xxxxx a good play would succeed if
assisted by spectacle. now here is an egg laid which you may either crush or
hatch in a moment.
You will I think be pleased with my English Eclogues.
I thank you for your account of Carnedd,p peasant ignorance. it is
strictly true. A clergyman, a friend of mine, was walking over his fields with
one of his parishioners, & noticed some fairy rings on the grass. Ah, said
the man, they be what the fairies makes ... we
do not see em now, but they were seen often enough in the olden times. What do
you mean by the olden times? said the clergyman. why olden times – the times of
the scriptures. you do read about em in the bible. no, he answerd, I am sure
theres nothing said of them in the bible. Oh yes there is. I’ve heard you read
about em very often. about the Scribes & Phārisees you know. Must not this
man have had fine ideas of the New Testament?
Your last was franked Wrexham & put into the office
at Chester.