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Beinecke Library, Osborn MSS File ‘S’, Folder 14118. 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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My eyes, which are somewhat the worse for the wear, have been tasked a little by your first book,xxxxxxx nothing but my eyes, – nevertheless my first opinion remains xx unaltered, that the subject is
utterly unfit for poetry, & that if you will not be content to regard all that you have written upon it as a heap of old
materials in which you may quarry for ready cut stones to employ in a better building upon a happier site, – you had
better resolutely throw the whole xxx behind the fire.
The event is so near our own times as to render any machinery not merely improper, but even absurd. We reconcile
ourselves easily to the thought of a Greek or Trojan talking to the Gods, & of Jupiter deciding between the two parties, &
even willing the death of any individual among them, because the mortal agents are so far removed into the age of fable that
xxx the existence of them & their Gods is alike to us, – we hear of both in the same story, & always have
heard of them together. But Gods & Grenadiers, or Genii & Grenadiers are a most ill-judged assortment, & to introduce
Deity as casting a thought upon the petty squabbles of the French & English in Canada, is both monstrous in taste, &
would, I am sure, be offensive to the common religious feelings of the country. Besides, the subject itself is altogether unworthy
of any supernatural agency, & your Ghost is misplaced. Neither good nor evil has resulted from the conquest of Canada, – nor
is any good to be expected from it while xx French continues the language of the country. I am sure the event is
utterly unfit for poetry, & utterly unworthy of it, – & the more you strain & strive to elevate it, – the more
gorgeous are the colours with which you embroider the canvas, the more is the coarseness & poverty of the canvas itself
displayed.
You appear to me to have an over-anxiety for raising & ornamenting your subject. There are two remedies for
this, – chuse a topic so noble in itself as to lead you into no temptation of this nature, – or one so wild that you may weave up
with it as much magic & machinery as your heart desires. Try which of these plans you will & when Mrs
Elliott
My poemthen perceive when this said poem reaches
you that I have bestowed my own time & labour upon one in which it is absolutely impossible that the public can be
interested.