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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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I should have acknowledged the receipt of the bill yesterday had there been any post to London. there was no inconvenience whatever in our not receiving it sooner.
In about ten days our future habitation will be made habitable. the former tenant has quitted – & the carpenter & the mason & the whitewashes & the painter are busy in repairing the dilapidations of many years. two beggarly cottages will soon be revolutionized into a decent dwelling. these necessary alterations are not at our expences – the little improvement which savour of luxury we set about ourselves as soon as we get in, such as papering & filling up an ugly corner with a convenient cupboard. the house will be small, but large enough to be comfortable & to have a spare bed room, a sine qua non with me. the garden is a large piece of ground, & quite empty, so that I may please myself in filling it, & have already in my head allotted out its various divisions of potatoes, peas, cabbages, artichokes, currant & gooseberry bushes, & the near turf plat where a few larger fruit trees may be ornamentally planted – planting is a trifling expence, & I shall at least have the pleasure of seeing the trees grow – tho perhaps the changes of life may prevent me from enjoying any other advantage. a spring rises close by the garden & fills a fishpond at the bottom. I mean to take much of my due exercise in the useful employment of gardening, which will be putting out time upon good interest.
I mentioned to you if I recollect aright some time ago, that we were uneasy respecting a brother of Edith, who went to sea & had not been heard of. after being driven by storms
into Spain & walking thro that country into Portugal he is returned. the boy is about fifteen, & has been much neglected, but
he is a good boy, & thoroughly sick of the sea life x which I believe he originally adopted rather
from want of any better employ than from inclination. As soon as we are settled I mean to send for him, & do what I can in the way
of informing him, by setting about this properly I can save time which is the most important thing. my after views are to make a
printer of him. because it is a business which he may exercise without a long apprenticeship – <which> requires perhaps a smaller
capital than any other, & because whenever he shall be able to exercise it I can at once put into his hands three fourths of that employment necessary for his support.
I have made some progress in my metrical Romance, Thalaba the Destroyer. a poem from which I expect credit &
emolument. it will give me pleasure to read it to you when you visit Burton. the extent will be
ten books, of which the fourth is nearly finished. it will probably be ready for publication in the spring. The second Anthologysort of memorial of those who are distant. These then are my employments, I wish
I could give you as good an account of my health – but that certainly does not improve.
My opinions upon all important subjects have long since ceased to fluctuate. I repose upon Christianity, aware of the
arguments against it, & flinging like JJ Rousseau, the weight of hope into the scale of reason.
So far you will readily comprehend me – but you will not perhaps understand how my political opinions are founded upon
feelings precisely the same. I examine the extremes of society & know that they are not fitted to the nature of man – that both
extremes necessarily deprave him. I am <too> metaphysical enough <not> to know that our
characters are for the most part the effect of surrounding circumstances, & I am too pious to believe that God can have made us
naturally sinful, therefore necessarily wretched. hence the love of equality which is rooted in my heart & blended with all xx xx my associations. I see evil produced by existing establishments & know that it might be better
& am with all the ardour & sincerity of my soul a Republican. On all points that may can come
into action there is little difference between us. with most of my friends I agree in some essential point, scarcely with any in
all.
Keenan