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Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 22. 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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I was at Bristol when your letter arrived — the inclosed was immediately written, I have spoken of Robert Haynes
you mistook me about Madoc. I had neither the intention or wish of immediate publication. twas a forlorn hope for the future. I wrote to Wynn about five days ago — & told him the only remora that would detain me here after Christmas. I am as little content with the world as you are, but I do not like Allens gunpowder plot. the world must be mended by the total reorganization of society. & as a Christian I believe this must take place. if I did not — I should join the Atheism of Allen — without embracing his plans for the improvement of a rascally public. you call yourself an aristocrat — & before God I know no man whose opinions & feelings are more anti-aristocratical!
I shall probably visit London a week before Edith — to look about me & fix. will you house me for that time? your plan makes some alteration in mine — I meant to live about Newington to be in the road between Brixton & the Exchequer — now the nearer we are to Lincolns Inn the better — & the nearer to each other.
But why so anxious Grosvenor as to injure your health? a little stoicism amalgamates well with human affections & virtues & methinks you are too anxious: you have already enough for all wants — & all necessary comforts — & your heart is now your own. a single man needs only good raiment & shelter. if his affections be not engaged & these fail to make him happy — nothing can. that man should ever want these!
Do you expect to find me altered much? I feel myself the same now as when I first began to feel: & can trace the developement of my character thro every stage. it is tranquilized — not changed. remember you the first of March 1792?
fare you well! the day is short. the work is long
I have just read Carlyles Arabic Translations
My Uncle lives next door to the only English Hotel where Haynes will go upon landing. he has only to give him the letter.