Letter from William Gilpin, Vicar's Hill, to Sir George Beaumont, 1802 November 3 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that he guesses that Beaumont has left the countryside for London by now, though "[s]treets, & squares, & lofty buildings are but ill-exchanged for vistas, plains & mountains"; telling him that his good friend and neighbor Sir Harry Neale is about to leave for Naples for the winter with his wife Grace, who has "consumptive symptoms"; mentioning that Neale is such a favorite of Lord St. Vincent that "a frigate is appointed to carry them" there; writing of how much he will miss Neale's company and describing him as someone that Beaumont ought to meet: "Considering the life he has led, I think him a most extraordinary person. From a boy he has lived upon the ocean: and tho educated in that rough school, he is become at once from a gallant officer, a respectable country-gentleman. He is religious, social, friendly, & charitable. His gentle, & amiable manners, which made his crew follow him from the mutiny at the Nore, at the hazard of being sunk, conciliate all people to him here; but above all, his poor neighbours"; saying that Neale has been learning to draw, that he had brought a drawing master down from London, and that he has bought several of Gilpin's drawings; discussing the results of the sale of his drawings (see MA 1581.59 for additional information on this) and saying that he has raised enough for his school in Boldre, "but I grow avaricious; & want to do a little for a school at Brokenhurst, which is an appendage of Boldre. It has a little foundation already; but not enough"; mentioning that Mr. Christie (the auctioneer) gave up all his profits in the sale, but he cannot get the Treasury to do the same: "They have charged me, as a duty upon my little sale, between £60 & £70: & as it seems no poor-houses, nor parish-schools pay any duty, I thought my sale came very naturally under the latter of these heads"; writing that he has made inquiries with a former student, who could not help him, and he does not want to trouble the chancellor of the exchequer about it, "but it is a hardship which I have not yet quite digested"; discussing Claude Lorrain's book of drawings Liber Veritatis.