Autograph copy of a letter signed : place not specified, to the Earl of Egremont, [between 1828 and 1837].

Concerning a request he has received to borrow a painting for exhibition; explaining that he is reluctant to ask his recipient's "permission to refuse what it might be thought I ought not to object to", but that, "to exhibit has always been a hateful thing to me"; acknowledging the merits of the original goal in establishing the Royal Academy, but expressing his opinion that exhibitions have had a pernicious effect on the arts over time comparable to the influence the large theaters have had on the dramatic arts; recounting his realization upon his return from the continent in 1828 of the poor effects exhibitions have had on English painting and on his own work ("I include my own productions in this censure and cannot help feeling mortified when looking at some of my earlier pictures and fancying that I should have been a better painter if I had only had to meet my brother artists exertions in private instead of public rooms"); requesting that, should Lord Egremont choose to lend the picture, he will allow the writer to wash and varnish it beforehand, if necessary.