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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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Your letter had made me very uncomfortable – you say two franks full of Espriella
I shall not hurry to town. Wynn knows what I want & it is not to be had till it is vacated. And were it otherwise Fortune is the only being that I shall ever stand upon ceremony with – she may depend upon it that if she does not think proper to call upon me I shall never look after her. Seriously speaking no possible good could arise from my leaving Keswick in February rather than in March. You know all I wish is an appointment at Lisbon, one or two, whichever turns up first. It is asked for me & it is in Fox’s gift, & I am promised Ld Hollands interest & Lady H.s also which may be worth more as Ladies have a way of being pertinacious. If I were looking after preferment it should be thro female patronage.
Today is the twenty second of February, & my reviewing is this day finished which is a day & half sooner than my calculation, – tomorrow month or five weeks I may start, its a hideous journey & I ache as I sit in my chair at the thought of what my poor uncushioned bones are to go thro. I will stop at Congreve very willingly. Is there no coach from Birmingham to London thro Coventry? I want to see that old town, & to avoid the long circumbenditus thro Oxford
I have two questions to answer. Wild geese are not to be had here. Last year the General offered a high price for one – which he & I were to have eaten
together, but without avail. – I have never seen them but once since we have lived here & that was two winters ago. – Of
Colonel Taylor you can have heard me say nothing, for I know nothing of him. you may possibly have heard me say that I had read
one of his books which would be a very useful guide to any person going overland to India, but is of no value to anybody
else.
So you have been reading the history of Shuey-ping-sing & Tieh-chung-u.
The purpose of this letter is to express the forlorn hope about the lost frank – if it be lost let me know what pages are lost, & send those directly before & after that I may know where to begin & where to end in supplying the loss. Now farewell
No news of Coleridge!