BIB_ID
403758
Accession number
MA 1581.261
Creator
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850.
Display Date
Grasmere, England, 1810 May 10.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 23.5 x 18.7 cm
Notes
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Wordsworth) 31.
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 postmarks to "Lady Beaumont / Grosvenor Square / London."
This letter includes a note, written after Wordsworth's postscript, by Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.
A footnote to the published letter, cited below, indicates the Introduction to which Wordsworth refers was to Wilkinson's 'Select Views'.
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 postmarks to "Lady Beaumont / Grosvenor Square / London."
This letter includes a note, written after Wordsworth's postscript, by Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont.
A footnote to the published letter, cited below, indicates the Introduction to which Wordsworth refers was to Wilkinson's 'Select Views'.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Thanking Lady Beaumont for reading an Introduction he wrote in which "...I transport the Reader to the top of one of the Mountains, or rather to the Cloud chosen for his station, and give a sketch of the impressions which the Country might be supposed to make on a feeling mind, contemplating its appearance before it was inhabited;" saying he and his sister expect to come to Coleorton in six weeks; asking her "...to tell Sir George that I should have written to him long ago, but too much love, combined with a good deal of sadness, has kept me silent. I could not write without opening my heart; and that would have led to painful subjects, which knowing his state of health and spirits, I thought it better to avoid;" commenting, in a postscript, on Lady Beaumont telling him "...that Mr. Canning could not deny that I had spoken with the bone of truth. The misfortune is, with persons in Mr. Canning's situation, it is impossible to know when they speak with sincerity. But this I am assured of, that the events which have since taken place prove that I had at least some portion of the gift of prescience - in fact, every thing that has been done in Spain, right or wrong, is a comment upon the principles I have laid down;" continuing the letter with a note written by Dorothy to Lady Beaumont; relating the progress Catharine has made; saying "... she makes visible advances daily as the trees and plants are doing in the hot sunshine of this month of May. She is carefully rubbed for an hour by the clock every day upon the weak side, and for another hour (each at two different times) along the Spine from the neck downwards. This by the advice of Mr. Grosvenor of Oxford who has been so successful in the cure of lameness by friction;" describing the success Mr. Grosvenor had with a friend who broke her hip; adding that they "...shall not be forced to leave Grasmere Vale. We are to have the Parsonage house which will be made a very comfortable dwelling before we enter upon it which will be next year at this time;" concluding with the news that Mary gave birth to a boy "...and she suffered less than she has ever done before."
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