Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed : Amsterdam, to [Fowler], 1824 Jun. 1.

BIB_ID
120126
Accession number
MA Unassigned
Creator
Williams, Helen Maria, 1762-1827.
Display Date
1824 Jun. 1.
Description
1 item (1 page, with address)
Notes
Address: "[Fowler] Esq / No. 37 St. Pauls Churchyard / London". The name of the addressee is unclear and could be Vowler.
Removed from an extra-illustrated copy of James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, 1791); PML 9812-9815; volume IV, page 305.
Summary
Saying that the letter will be delivered to [Fowler] by Williams's brother-in-law Mr. Coquerel, who is going to London for a fortnight; adding that she has asked Coquerel to inquire after the health of [Fowler] and his daughters; mentioning that she is writing from "the banks of the Amstel" and explaining the circumstances that brought her there; describing the death of her half-sister Persis Williams and her grief over it: "she had always been to me a second mother -- we had passed the whole of my life together, and we had remembrances that were our own -- I cannot console myself for her loss because she was old -- I see no reason in that circumstance for less regretting those [one has] loved"; recalling and praising Persis's "noble and virtuous character"; saying that her nephew [Athanase Coquerel] will not "yet suffer me to fix the hour of my departure for Paris, where I hope we shall meet again"; asking [Fowler] to write and to mention "your venerable friend Dr. Rees -- I have read his [sermons] again & again."