Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Uvedale Price, Foxley, to Sir George Beaumont, 1805 January 22 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
414320
Accession number
MA 1581.128
Creator
Price, Uvedale, Sir, 1747-1829, sender.
Display Date
Foxley, England, 1805 January 22.
Credit line
Purchased from Benjamin Ifor Evans, 1954.
Description
1 item (3 pages, with address) ; 23.3 x 18.9 cm
Notes
Written from Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
Address panel with postmarks: "Sir George Beaumont Bart. / Dunmow / Essex."
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 62.
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
Complimenting Sir George's description of "little Roscius" (the child-actor William Henry West Betty) and his mentor Thomas Hough (Price writes his name as "Huff"), and saying he wishes he would make a sketch of them; discussing Betty and Hough at length and how glad he is that Beaumont has made their acquaintance; adding "It is a great point to preserve him [Betty] from the effects of early & excessive admiration & flattery, & from the contagion of our present style of tragic acting, ten times more virulent & malignant than the yellow fever [...] but really the first point is to preserve him from being destroyed by fatigue before his bodily & mortal powers are matured, or, what would be his theatrical death, from having his voice cracked by being forced to overstrain it in that enormous theatre of Drury Lane"; saying that even Garrick himself could not project far enough to fill the new theater; describing the experience of seeing Garrick in the old Drury Lane: "In the old theatre, as we remember it, we could see each change of that most flexible of all countenances, could catch each turn & glance of the most expressive of all eyes, & each modulation of a voice the most varied of all others in all its tones; but where theatres are encreased without any regard to the usual powers of seeing & hearing, all the more delicate touches of the art must be lost, & only the coarser can be distinguished, & the scene & the actors are like pictures & statues, that are only to be viewed at a distance"; discussing Greek and Roman tragedy; writing "It will really be curious if a reformation of the public taste should be brought about by so young a reformer [...] but I am delighted to find that the renewal of the old school, & of truth & nature has been so received"; quoting Boileau; sending his compliments to Lady Beaumont.