BIB_ID
414649
Accession number
MA 1581.289
Creator
Ashburnham, George Ashburnham, Earl of, 1760-1830.
Display Date
Florence, Italy, 1826 November 23.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (3 pages) ; 22.3 x 18.7 and 7.6 x 13.4 cm
Notes
The letter consists of one leaf, written on both sides, and a postscript written on a smaller piece of paper. The letter breaks off midway through a sentence and the final pages or pages are missing. Neither the main letter nor the postscript is signed. In their biography of Sir George Beaumont, Felicity Owen and David Blayney Brown identify the author of the letter as George Ashburnham. See Collector of Genius: A Life of Sir George Beaumont (Yale University Press, 1988), page 226, for the reference.
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.
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
Apologizing for not having written; saying "Many indeed, and mournful alas' in too great a proportion, have been the Events since I left England two years since: within which period I have lost several of my oldest friends and acquaintances: and of the survivors the reports are not such, as I wish"; lamenting the Earl of Mulgrave's poor state of health (following a stroke several years earlier); commenting on the Earl's brother: "Alas', poor Edmund too. Of him, if I read you right, nothing is left but his laugh"; including six lines of verse on mortality; discussing the family generally and saying "When I last saw them, Augustus was the only one of the three Brothers, who could either fight, or run away"; saying that he wished that Sir George had sent news of Mrs. Phipps, "for whom I entertain a very sincere regard & affection" (possibly referring to Henry Phipps's wife, Martha Sophia Maling, Countess Mulgrave); asking after Lady Beaumont's health; referring to Sir George's health: "nothing is to be desired more, than that it should ever be such as you have for so many years enjoy'd, and complained of"; mentioning David Wilkie; adding in a postscript that he was about to send this letter when Normanby (Henry Phipps's son, Constantine, known in this period as Viscount Normanby) came to announce the opening of his theater for the season; adding four lines of verse about Normanby's love for the stage.
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