BIB_ID
210161
Accession number
MA 9096
Creator
Brown, John, 1810-1882.
Display Date
[1862-1882?].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 17.7 x 11.3 cm
Notes
Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
This letter is part of the Knight collection but it is possible that it was written to John Nichol and not to Knight as Knight quotes from it in his biography of John Nichol but also quotes from it in the book cited below which makes it appear as a letter to Knight.
Written on stationery printed "23. Rutland Street / Edinburgh."
The salutation reads "My dear Poet & Aristarch" and is signed "Yours & Pulchra's / ever truly."
This letter is part of the Knight collection but it is possible that it was written to John Nichol and not to Knight as Knight quotes from it in his biography of John Nichol but also quotes from it in the book cited below which makes it appear as a letter to Knight.
Written on stationery printed "23. Rutland Street / Edinburgh."
The salutation reads "My dear Poet & Aristarch" and is signed "Yours & Pulchra's / ever truly."
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from William Angus Knight, 1908.
Summary
Commenting on a review that Knight wrote saying "Your review is too good, too rich for the book reviewed - it is powerful but tiresome & hardly justifies itself - We must squeeze out the whey next time;" differing with him on the relative merits of Byron, Scott and Wordsworth saying "You speak of Byron as the greatest poet of this century & now if you put Wordsworth in [the] last century, then this may stand - though I would put in a plea for Scott - but if you set B. above W - then I must apply to the Court of Session for an interdict against such blasphemy. The Review is admirable & even poetical...I send some uncouth lines by an unknown poet. It is his first & will probably be his last effort. It is remarkable for the number of monosyllabic words in it - especially in 'Thin Thoughts."
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