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BL Add. MS 28268, ff. 271–72
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editors wish 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.
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This packet will be Cows tail fashion, all behind. Aunt George
applied for what I could not for the soul of me procure untill yesterday I
therefore growld, and sighd, and smoked, and slepd, and growld again, and
ultimately could not send untill mondays Coach. I now write to Mr Lofft and hope that he will have it
on the Tuesday, but if you leave the village to be at Bury the following day, it may
happen that he may not have recieved it when you go, though this is rather
unlikely. I have said that you will certainly call, and I think there is little
cause for perturbation of spirit. I advise you to give your name at the front door, and request to see Mr Lofft. If he should be out, ask if
the ladies are within and repeat the same request.
I enclose a letter for Mr Austin according to your
wish, and am indeed glad to find you so full of spirits and health, yet you dont
know how much I want to see you. Thetford is a queer old place and you will get
a good notion of it by your visits, Aunt Kate is a queer old touch, but with much decision of character as I call it. If you can see the Theatre at Bury do so by all means, write to
me the day you get there, and again to state the evening of your return. If you
have not told Mary Binley the time of your return I wish particularly to keep
the particular hour from her father, otherwise he will be
here, or accompany me to the Inn to meet you. Last Thursday Wednesday your
Mother went and slepd at Deptford, and I walk’d there the next morning
and got [word deleted] Nothing.—I shall dine with him on that day fortnight, and
hope for better luck. I have just cut the gourds, they would not hang till you
came home. Honour has been with a how di
do, and her dad is just gone home. Mother Freeman has been to visit us and your mother promised to go and
see her, but has not been!!
Dont be perswaded to go to the Assembly Rooms at Bury with Mrs Lockwoods family, you will only be mortified. Keep humble and squint at them all as you know how. I will meet you and your luggage at the Inn.
I have several times intended to remind you that If your Cousins at Honington or any other boys have any ‘Fairies Cakes,’ curiously markd pebbles and will part with them for halfpence, bring what you can, They will know what you mean. Bring away some thunderbolts, and some ‘Devel’s Toe Nails’, which are found in a field north of what was Mr Rolfs Rookery, but if these are not to be had, dont stop for either. These strange names make it look like a queer errand to set a young girl about, but I tell you they know what I mean—I feel proud of your letters, but I would rather have your company. Mary is growing fast, Rob is asleep, the other two cracking walnuts, and mother well.
The time prevents my saying more now.
thank you for the Nutts
I am happily busy on the Banks of Wye