BIB_ID
414203
Accession number
MA 1581.111
Creator
Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829, sender.
Display Date
Foxley, England?, 1803 August?.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (5 pages) ; 23 x 18.6 cm
Notes
Price does not date the letter. On the back of the letter there is a note in an unknown hand reading "August 1803," and this dating is supported by the contents of the letter.
Price does not give a place of writing. Based on the contents, it was most likely written at Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 45.
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.
Price does not give a place of writing. Based on the contents, it was most likely written at Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 45.
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
Rejoicing in the success of the gardener James Cranston's stay at Coleorton (see letters MA 1581.107-110 for background); reporting that "Cranston tells me he liked the place better & better the longer he staid at it & that he thinks it will be made a very pleasant & comfortable habitation"; conveying more of Cranston's reactions to the Beaumonts and Coleorton; adding "I am very glad that the place improved upon Mr. [George] Dance as well as upon Cranston, but above all that Sir George himself begins to take such an interest in it"; inviting them, if they grow more interested in the subject, to study what he has done at Foxley, "as many of my experiments have been made long enough for you to judge of their effect, they will be examples of what should be imitated, or avoided, or improved upon"; discussing his plans to continue designing various walks and rides next winter, "unless we should be engaged in a different sort of campaign & tactics of another kind, with which I am totally unacquainted either in theory or practice, & hope I shall ever remain so" (referring to the threat of invasion by Bonaparte and the French); comparing himself to the general Philopœmen (about whom he supposes they have read both in Plutarch and in Reynold's quotations from Plutarch) and describing how "that great General had always been in the habit of examining wherever he went every ravine, defile [...] & of considering how he should dispose his troops to the greatest advantage in each situation; change troops for trees, & it has been my practice for these many years"; giving his thoughts in detail on thinning and pruning trees; describing the treework he has been doing at Foxley, a pruner he has employed and how pleased he is with the results; writing "in short I have been trying to apply to nature the principles of an art, which Sir George understands infinitely better than I can pretend to do [...] however, as he cannot work with his own hands or groups of trees as he can on canvas, he must condescend to take lessons from me as to the manner of directing how it should be done, & I can shew many specimens of the good effects of pruning & thinning & of the bad consequences of neglecting them"; mentioning a letter by Swift about friendship; adding that "[a]ll here desire to be remembered to you & Sir George the Franker...".
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