Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

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Letter from Uvedale Price, Foxley, to Sir George Beaumont, 1797 September 5 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
413875
Accession number
MA 1581.74
Creator
Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829, sender.
Display Date
Foxley, England, 1797 September 5.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 22.8 x 18.7 cm
Notes
Written from Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 8.
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.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Asking where Beaumont spent the summer; saying that a knight-errant usually begins by recounting his own adventures, but "I have done nothing more than go to Aberystwyth, & return here, without meeting a single giant or dragon in my way"; adding that, in a fortnight, he will be at a priory (probably Lord Abercorn's residence, Bentley Priory) near Dunmow, Essex, and that he hopes to see them then; giving details about the other places he is traveling to in the next few weeks and who he will be seeing, among them Richard Payne Knight; teasing Beaumont about accompanying him: "I know that laziness serves you in lieu of method, & I might as well propose to you a journey to the moon on the new comet, as to Downton, especially as the party is a little rebellious"; adding the news that "Knight has at last cut off that mark of loyalty & aristocracy yclepd a pigtail. The operation was performed in great ceremony at the house of that arch-rebel the Earl of Oxford & Mortimer [...] Lady Caroline [probably Price's wife Caroline] brought down a napkin, put it over his shoulders, & then Lady Oxford's scissors soon made him as stubbed behind as he has long since been in front"; commenting "I imagine some celestial democrat has been docking the new comet, who I find is called the crop [or cross?]. If the good old fashioned comet with his loyal tail was wont with fear of change to perplex monarchs, what must this do, who comes in such a questionable shape?"; sending his compliments to Lady Beaumont; concluding "write to me immediately, & tell me where you have been, where you are, & where you are going."