BIB_ID
403736
Accession number
MA 1581.239
Creator
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850.
Display Date
Grasmere, England, 1806 August 1.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23 x 18.5 cm
Notes
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Wordsworth) 9.
This letter is from a large collection of letters written to Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) and Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont (1758-1829) of Coleorton Hall and to other members of the Beaumont family. See collection-level record for more information (MA 1581.1-297).
Address panel with postmark to "Sir Geo. Beaumont Bart / Coleorton / Ashby de la Zouche / Leicestershire."
A note to the published letter cited below identifies the verses Wordsworth discusses as "Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm"... The picture was by Sir G. B. and W. W. saw it at his house when he was in London in the spring of this year. Being a shipwreck scene, it reminded W. W. of the death of his brother John off Weymouth in Feb. 1805."
This letter is from a large collection of letters written to Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) and Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont (1758-1829) of Coleorton Hall and to other members of the Beaumont family. See collection-level record for more information (MA 1581.1-297).
Address panel with postmark to "Sir Geo. Beaumont Bart / Coleorton / Ashby de la Zouche / Leicestershire."
A note to the published letter cited below identifies the verses Wordsworth discusses as "Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm"... The picture was by Sir G. B. and W. W. saw it at his house when he was in London in the spring of this year. Being a shipwreck scene, it reminded W. W. of the death of his brother John off Weymouth in Feb. 1805."
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Thanking him for his letter and saying that he is glad he liked the verses; saying "I could not but write them with feeling with such a subject, and one that touched me so nearly: your delicacy in not leading me to the Picture did not escape me. It is a melancholy satisfaction to me to connect my dear Brother with anybody whom I love much; and I knew that the verses would give you pleasure as a proof of my affection for you. The picture was to me a very moving one; it exists in my mind at this moment as if it were before my eyes;" expressing his hope that he and Lady Beaumont still might visit them this summer; relating news they had about Coleridge but saying they had not heard directly from him; expressing his irritation that Coleridge "...has lost all his papers; how we are not told. This grieves and vexes me much...a large collection of my poems is gone with the rest; among others five books of the Poem upon my own life, but of all these I have copies; he, I am afraid, has none of his old writings;" telling Sir George "...I have returned to the Recluse, and have written 700 additional lines. Should Coleridge return, so that I might have some conversation with him upon the subject, I should go on swimmingly;" adding that they have been enjoying the summer and have been "...very little interrupted with Tourist-Company...I am now writing in the Moss hut, which is my study, with a heavy thunder shower pouring down before me. It is a place of retirement for the eye (though the Public Road glimmers through the apple-trees a few yards below), and well suited to my occupations;" relating a humorous anecdote about two men and their dog who are renting the Cottage for the summer; concluding that they think it is still possible they will spend the winter at Coleorton but continue to look for a house near Grasmere; adding "We are the more willing to be kept in a state of suspense as long as Coleridge is unarrived;" thanking him for his kindness and adding, in a postscript, the translation of a sonnet by Michelangelo which he titles 'To the Supreme Being' with the first line being "The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed."
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