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

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

Letter from Uvedale Price, Foxley, to Sir George Beaumont, 1801 December 4 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
414074
Accession number
MA 1581.96
Creator
Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829, sender.
Display Date
Foxley, England, 1801 December 4.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.6 x 18.9 cm
Notes
Written from Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
Address panel with postmarks: "Lady Beaumont / Dunmow / Essex."
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 29.
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 her whether she saw John Nash at Bath and, if she did, whether he mentioned receiving a letter from Price or had plans to come to Foxley; recounting certain ideas he has for improvements to a house and landscape (possibly Foxley), but expressing doubts about whether he will be able to pursue them; saying that he is "several years younger & several pounds fatter" than when she last saw him: "Lady Caroline says it is from my having left off all red potations & addicted myself unto sack, that is to white wine; but, with her leave, all the honour is not due to this change of liquor; but to the medicine I recommended to Sir George, and which he, like a naughty child, would not take, because it looked, (& perhaps tasted a little) like a black dose"; looking forward to seeing various friends and "reading Miss [Joanna] Baillie" in the new year; including two lines from Horace in Latin, in reference to coming to see them; adding "Whether Lady Caroline & I shall fly together, like the two spirits in Dante, or those Zephyrs, I don't know; she is still more attached to this Herefordshire clay than myself, & never desires to take a longer flight than round her own Farm"; telling her that he is reading Montaigne's essays for the first time, after having heard so much about them: "He is a most amazing old Bavard, & full of strong original thoughts, very strongly, & originally expressed. I think you would like him in general, but you would quite love him when he talks upon politics & the danger of changes in government, & the facility of destroying, & the difficulty of rebuilding: if after this you don't send instantly to your Bookseller for Les Essais de Montagne, I shall think you are turned Democrat & have corrupted Sir George."