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."
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."
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