Letter from John George Cooke, London, to Baroness Marie Blaze de Bury, 1857 February 17 : autograph manuscript signed.

Informing her that the case of a young man named Raynsford has been declared hopeless by his doctors and expressing his admiration for the stoicism and selflessness with which the young man has resigned himself to death; remarking that "Johnny is at home just now but will have to return to Oxford next term" and expressing regret that he "cannot go to Cumberland Plain", as he "never will enter that man's house again or met him in any way - on any kind of terms until he has made an ample apology & expressed regret for the blackguard insult he put on me by making me acquainted with his mistress without telling me the truth & passing her off as a friend of his wife."; asking after her health and discussing the current political scene in England, and sharing his owning scathing observations on Lord Palmerston's ministry ("That clever harlequin rogue Palmerston ... will wriggle thro' another session without a dissolution. He treats all thinkers and workers with a jest & his satellites of the same kidney without his power vote with him amidst shouts of laughter all true worth, earnestness & reality is jeered at & laughed away by this government."); suggesting that she read the life of Sir Charles Napier (i.e.,The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles James Napier) by his brother, General W[illiam] Napier, remarking, "The man's inflexible radical theory & belief with his own practice strictly according to the Constitution seem to be an admirable lesson of how the two great opposing elements of progressivism & conservatism can be blended."; mentioning his nephew Harry Torrens (the son of his half-sister Emily Skyring Torrens) , asking if "that idle Deschamps" has let her have his account, and stating that Charles Taylor's father is "very unlikely to live out the winter."