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Bodleian Library, MS Don. d. 3. 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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Your shirts are at last finished & will immediately be forwarded. they will probably reach you at the same time with this.
You are now Harry placed in a more favourable
situation than we could reasonably have expected or hoped. I
trust you will see the necessity of profiting by it to the
utmost. On the subject of your studies I am about to write
to Mr Maurice. it is my particular wish that
you should apply yourself to mathematics, as without a
knowledge of them you will find it impossible to make any
proficiency in the sciences hereafter. If when you leave
school you are well grounded in mathematics & have a
good knowledge of Latin & Greek, every thing will be
easy & pleasurable to you. In the profession of surgery
or medicine every thing may be accomplished by talents; as
far as this will be in my
power you shall have every advantage in pursuing your
studies, & if you do not attain to eminence it will be
your own fault. the profession itself is of all others the
most useful, & I know enough of medical studies to be
assured that they are the most interesting.
About your dancing Harry. we are not in a
situation to allow of any expence that can be avoided. it is
only by unremitting labour (to a degree indeed that has
injured my health) that I can supply the wants of a large
family, nor could you be supported in your present situation
without the assistance of a friend. this is saying enough.
nor is it of any importance whether you ever learn or no. If
there be any opportunity of your learning French, I should
wish you to profit by it. for tho you may at any time teach
yourself to read the language, the power of speaking in it
can only be acquired in youth. this I shall mention to Mr Maurice.
How are you employed? what books do you read?
I shall in the course of next week send a
volume of my Poems
Edward was with me nearly a fortnight, recovering from the hooping cough. my mother has caught a severe cold. she is at present in Bristol. your sister Edith, & Peggy join me in love.
y. 1799.