BIB_ID
108541
Accession number
MA 9477
Creator
Burke, Richard, 1733-1794.
Display Date
[1773 January 6].
Description
1 item (4 pages) : 22.2 x 18.3 cm
Notes
Though the item is incomplete, without an address, date or signature, it forms part of a letter written by Richard Burke to his kinsman William Burke on January 6, 1773. The letter in full was published in Correspondence of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, edited by Charles William, Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke (London: Francis & John Rivington, 1844), volume 1, pages 403-407. It is not known whether this is an autograph letter or a copy in another hand. It has, apparently incorrectly, been attributed to the dramatist Richard Cumberland in the past.
From Hayley, Life of Romney.
From Hayley, Life of Romney.
Summary
Giving an account of a dinner party attended by Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Samuel Johnson and the Dean of Derry (Thomas Barnard); relaying an exchange between Johnson and Barnard about whether a man can improve after the age of forty-five; writing that Johnson confessed to Mrs. Thrale the next day that he did not know "what ailed him"; enclosing a humorous poem in nine verses by Barnard on the subject that makes reference to numerous contemporary literary figures.
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