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 William Smith, Bury, to Sir George Beaumont, 1818 March 29 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
414541
Accession number
MA 1581.182
Creator
Smith, William, 1730-1819.
Display Date
Bury St. Edmunds, England, 1818 March 29.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1959.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 22.9 x 18.6 cm
Notes
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. See collection-level record for more information (MA 1581.1-297).
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Smith) 5.
Address panel with postmarks and seal to "Sir George Beaumont / Grosvenor Square / London."
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Relating news of his poor health; saying "I have not been perfectly well - wearing out by a gentle & gradual Decay, without gout or Stone, or pain, which alarms or disheartens me. What old age can & ought to submit to, I have no cause to complain of, & have read enough to reconcile me to the Lot which all must or wish to [illegible[ to...sleepy & sluggish, I have strength to take my Exercise in my Garden, a large one, some two or three hours in a day, & have a hope (perhaps a childish one) of seeing the Sport at Newmarket in April but Company & Carousal I am unequal to, tho; was strongly pressed lately to join a Party where there were 8 Gentlemen of high talents, the youngest 80 the oldest under 90, who earnestly requested myself & wife to join them...I have lost my Stage Curiosity & indeed my May of Life; & the Yellow Leaf drops apace from the withering Bough;" asking, in a postscript, if he has a "...Print of the Apotheosis of Garrick? with the Portraits of the actors of the Day, in which I stand as Hamlet. The Bishop of Bristol, Master of Trinity, wishes to know the names of each particular performer - but I have forgot many of them. The Picture was painted by Carter, a bad one, but the Bishop is a perfect Lover of the Drama & would be happy to be at a certainty of the Characters. The Principal ones I have given him, but have forgot others."