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. 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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So long is it since I have written to you that I write almost at
random. a thousand changes may have happened – perhaps I may misdirect. day
after day & week after week have I thought of writing, & always
something to do or think of has prevented me. in the summer I was some days at
Abberley. Mr Severne
I am at Westbury, a village two miles from Bristol, with no children of my own, but a ready made family of relations. sedentary habits, always my choice & of late rendered necessary, have injured my health something. this I am endeavouring to remedy by a little medicine & much exercise. the world & I however agree well together. I have as much enjoyment as a man ought to expect or desire, & as for labouring for it, there is something pleasant in not being one of the drones of society.
I have a brother Lightfoot nearly fifteen years of age. I design to made a surgeon of him. he has been somewhat neglected. but during the last year has I hope made some progress. anothers years Latin & Greek is necessary for him & in looking round for a school at which to place him, you recurred to my recollection. are you still at Kingsbridge? & what are the terms of the school in which you are engaged? he is a boy of great talents, from whom if he turns out well, much may be hoped. for the last year he has been with Burnett, but a change in Burnetts situation renders it necessary to remove him now.
By the papers I learn the death of John Davy, & the election of Parsons to the Mastership of Balliol,
an event by which I think the College must be benefitted. I was glad to see they
had made so good a choice. Griffiths
You would perhaps smile were I to give you a list of all the
works I have in my head or even in hand. in the press I have a second edition of
my Letters, & a second volume of Poems.
<direct to Mr
Cottles. Bristol>