Letter from William Bodham Donne, Mattishall, to Frederick Walpole Keppel, 1842 January 5 : autograph manuscript signed.

Informing him that he has sent his brother, Arnold Keppel, a review of (Henry Hart) Milman; regretting that he will have to forgo his visits to Grepenhall [sic] and the pleasure of visiting with Keppel; asking if the school master there has informed Keppel of the lack of "bibles, arithmetical tables, and other trifles for the first class"; noting that work and illness have kept him from attending sermons and that he has "got another dissenter for a tenant", which will, he expects, "increase my unpopularity" and be construed as "stretching forth my hand to vex certain of the church"; commenting facetiously on a recent affront to himself made by a shoemaker who mistakenly addressed Donne as an attorney: I am constantly directed to as "The Revd" That I bear as philosophically as I can, and I endeavor to live down the error by wearing gay clothes, and sometimes by telling immoral stories - But "attorney" floors me. ... I don't believe that even Job was so tried, although his friends were very provoking. Perhaps if he had received a letter so addressed, he would have taken his wife's advice"; remarking on the Queens conduct as "most unrighteous", but noting that "there are precedents in her favour", and relating an anecdote regarding the belated christening of Sir Edward Sugden's children as adults.