BIB_ID
413895
Accession number
MA 1581.76
Creator
Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829, sender.
Display Date
Sunninghill, England, 1797 December 7.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (8 pages) ; 22.8 x 18.8 cm
Notes
Written from Sunninghill, a village in Berkshire. Price consistently writes the place name as "Sunning Hill." He may have been visiting his friend Richard FitzPatrick, who lived at Beech Grove, Sunninghill.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 10.
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 (Price) 10.
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
Saying how delighted he and all his family were with an account of an "adventure" that Beaumont had sent them; praising Beaumont as a true friend who would accompany Price on a journey "out of pure friendship [...] the whole way, keeping me out of bogs & quagmires when some Will of the whisp draws me towards them, & shewing me a number of beautiful parts I should not have discovered"; including quotations from Milton; saying that he joins with Beaumont in wishing that "Rembrandt was among us in flesh & blood"; referring to the difficulties of portraying "that Gibbon-like part of our person"; including some slightly bawdy French verses; saying that he has just seen a picture by Hogarth depicting strolling players in a barn: "It belongs to Mr. Wood of Littleton near Stanes, & has probably been there ever since it was painted"; mentioning that he had ridden over to Littleton the other day with a Mr. Wyat of Egham, who owns "some very good drawings" and who had "quarrelled with, knocked down, & pissed upon Joseph Mawbey"; including a quotation from "Clarke's Homer"; expatiating on the use of the word "urinatur" in the Iliad; describing in great detail his and Wyat's ride, including what kinds of horses they rode and how Wyat was dressed; describing Mr. Wood's appearance and behavior; describing where the Hogarth painting was hung (in a dark room, fixed on a panel over a chimney) and his reaction to it; saying that Wyat was concerned by the apparent dirtiness of the painting, but Wood said he would never let it out of his hands and also that he had learned how to clean paintings from Lord Portsmouth; conveying Wood's recipe for cleaning paintings (salt, water, oil, mustard and vinegar); saying that he hopes that indolence will prevail and Wood will leave the painting alone; sending his compliments to Lady Beaumont and mentioning his son and daughter; adding in a postscript that he hopes this letter does not arrive at the same time as a manuscript on bridges: "it is really almost as long."
Catalog link
Department