Letter from William Gilpin, Vicar's Hill, to Sir George Beaumont, 1802 November 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Responding to Beaumont's question about a source for "the best drawing-paper": "His name is Winchester; & his shop is opposite to Bedford-Street in the Strand"; explaining that Sir Harry Neale chose to spend the winter in Naples (see MA 1581.62 for context) for two reasons: "partly because he thought he should there find some amusement for his Lady [his wife Grace]; & partly because he had heard that at Madeira, it is not always easy to get away"; debating the merits of Claude Lorrain's works with Beaumont: "I am either myself totally ignorant of the energy of composition & effect -- which indeed I partly suspect: -- or you are somewhat enthusiastic about him -- which also I partly suspect"; describing the paintings by Claude that he has seen and where he saw them (at Houghton Hall, at Lord Radnor's, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's and in Beaumont's own collection); adding "I saw also that famous Claude, (I believe it was called,) which formerly belonged to Mr. Locke; & it has left in my eye, a great number of straight lines, & a great number of impertinent figures"; saying that he holds Beaumont's judgment higher in his esteem than his own, "& tho I cannot condescend to sacrifice to it my own idea of truth; yet I verily believe there is some defect in my eye, which prevents my seeing in Claude these great effects of composition, & light, which you do [...] What makes me suppose, that my eye is in fault, is that it admires [Berghein?], whom you consider chiefly as fit to lead the manufacturers of Birmingham"; asking if Beaumont knows whether a particular story about Sir Peter Lely is true; praising the landscape painter Richard Wilson: "I have not seen many of his pictures; but I never saw one on which my eye was not inclined to rest."