BIB_ID
413703
Accession number
MA 1581.51
Creator
Englefield, Henry, Sir, 1752-1822.
Display Date
London, 1808 March 21.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 25.2 x 20.2 cm
Notes
Written from Tilney Street, a street in London where Englefield is known to have lived.
Address panel with black wax seal and postmarks: "To / Sr George Beaumont Bar / Dunmow / Essex."
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.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Englefield) 2.
Address panel with black wax seal and postmarks: "To / Sr George Beaumont Bar / Dunmow / Essex."
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.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Englefield) 2.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Explaining that he had not written earlier because of the press of business and ill health; discussing Beaumont's paintings and saying that while it is true that he once declined a painting by him, it was only because it was not "that sort which I am most anxious to possess viz. Landscapes" and also that it did not form a companion piece to "my favourite Taverner to which you may remember, as I must, you once promised me a Pendant"; describing the Taverner painting he owns; discussing the work of Benjamin West: "I not only cordially agree in your estimate of the Powers of West but I am ready to go much further [...] I do not think that Nicolo [Poussin] could have given us any thing like the great pictures he has painted for Windsor & that Alterpiece at Greenwich"; saying of West's "Death on the Pale Horse" that it "rises to the Sublime of painting, can you tell me many pictures that surpass it, many even that reach it!"; asking if Beaumont has seen Walter Scott's new poem: "If it had not followed the Lay of the last Minstrel I think it would have been more praised than it will be. There are great beauties I think in it, & not a few faults, but it arrests the attention & that is a very great point"; reporting that Humphry Davy has recovered from his "long & dangerous illness" and is giving lectures again; referring to a "very brilliant & important" discovery Davy had made about alkaline salt the previous autumn; apologizing for the length of his letter and explaining "when a man is sitting alone all day he is apt not only to be as tedious as a King but to bestow it all on his unfortunate friends."
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