Letter from William Bodham Donne, Bury St. Edmunds, to Frederick Walpole Keppel, 1846 November : autograph manuscript signed.

Commenting on local Norwich news and gossip, including a "special announcement from [Rev. Thomas] Paddon", regarding an (unspecified) change in vocation ("If it be never too late to learn - why should it ever be too late to succeed in any other earthly employment."); a case involving a woman who was evidently misdiagnosed by her physician, ("The ignorance of the doctors is not only astounding but unfortunate for the female sex generally. I shall never hear of a lady with a liver-case again, without having my suspicions. My faith in female humanity is intrinsically shaken."); the unexpected "educational union" of Lee Warner and Rev. Bree to found an infant school; and a ball held by John Walsham to which Donne was invited, but which he chose not to attend, with some humorous remarks on formal French cuisine ("dinners on silver and dishes which require a dictionary de cuisine to understand and patent stomaches to digest when eaten'), and his own preference for simpler fare.