BIB_ID
414546
Accession number
MA 1581.183
Creator
Smith, William, 1730-1819.
Display Date
Bury St. Edmunds, England, 1818 May 11.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1959.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.0 x 18.7 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) 6.
Address panel with postmarks and seal to "Sir George Beaumont / Grosvenor Square / London."
Smith does not give the year of writing and simply dates the letter May 11. The postmark is unclear but an inventory listing of the complete Coleorton collection gives the year of writing for this letter as 1818.
This letter was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Smith) 6.
Address panel with postmarks and seal to "Sir George Beaumont / Grosvenor Square / London."
Smith does not give the year of writing and simply dates the letter May 11. The postmark is unclear but an inventory listing of the complete Coleorton collection gives the year of writing for this letter as 1818.
Provenance
Purchased as a gift of the Fellows from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Summary
Commenting on Miss [Eliza] O'Neill saying "...I am not likely to be a witness to her great claim to admiration...I must give up all Idea of seeing her. To speak truth I am neither young enough or rich enough to take London Trips very frequently & I cannot bear the fatigue of coming up to the Red Lion in Grays Inn Lane in the day, going to the Play in the Evening & back by the early coach next morn;" commenting on Miss O'Neill, Kean and Kemble; expressing his concern for the rising costs of play production; commenting on Sir George's drawings saying "You I find have indulged the public with some elegant sketches of yr Pencil - which I regret I shall not see nor the Hand that guides it I fear - We are now in fair State & I hope to go thro' the approaching Summer in Tolerable Health & Spirits;" asking, in a postscript, if he remembers the comedy of Beaumont & Fletcher and adding "Parker would be delighted with it?"
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