Letter from Uvedale Price, Foxley, to Lady Margaret Beaumont, 1803? April : autograph manuscript signed.

Inviting the Beaumonts to come to Foxley and "bring reams of paper, & boxes of chalk, & go on drawing till you had exhausted all the scenery, or all your paper & chalk"; writing that he hopes Sir George is able to get paper of exactly the tint he wants, "for he does manage his white chalk so admirably, that it is quite a pity that the whole should not be in the most perfect harmony"; teasingly chiding her for her criticism of his plantings of honeysuckle, woodbine and periwinkle: "All I can say is, come & see what I have done; come every year, & examine, & we will pull out, or cut down what you dislike"; making a reference to the painter Francis Bourgeois and the collectors Margaret and Noel Desenfans; saying that it seems unlikely that he and his wife will come to London, because of the difficulty of finding a house; adding that they must also save their money to pay income tax in case of a war; mentioning that there is influenza about and his family has been affected: "I was in hopes of escaping but being obliged to attend the Grand Jury, & afterwards a county meeting for an address to the King, the foul air of the town Hall infected me, & I was seized with the disorder immediately on my return"; describing the different stages of the illness and saying that it has left him "extremely languid, or to use rather an unsavoury comparison of his [referring to Sir George], very much like a wet dishcloth"; writing that he is glad she and Sir George liked his "wicked verses"; saying that he is anxious to read "De Lisle's verses by his fire-side" (possibly a reference to the poet Jacques Delille) and commending him as having "a truly poetical mind, & a wonderful facility of expressing himself in a language the most difficult of all others to write verse in, & the most crampt by strict regulations"; saying that it was mentioned in the newspapers that "the poor Abbè had fallen a victim to this terrible grippe" but that he has not heard it confirmed and hopes it is not true; asking after their health and saying that his wife Caroline has not shown any symptoms of influenza, though she has been nursing him, but that their daughter caught it and "is still very far from well"; sending greetings from his whole family, including his son Bob, "who is just come down from Eton."