Item 3 - Draft of a letter to Isaac Barrow

1 sheet

Purchased from T. R. G. Lawrence & Son, 1972.

An unsigned letter addressed to "Loving Cousen," two pages closely written, with several phrases crossed through and additions made both interlinearly and via an insertion symbol at the bottom. A note in a later hand appears at the top of the first page: "This was wrote to his nephew afterwards Dr Isaac Barrow M[aste]r of Trinity. See his life concerning the engagement."

The writer is a royalist and refers to a small allowance he gives to the recipient, and reacts strongly to the news that the recipient was been offered a fellowship by "Regi-cides", and mentions both Dr Hill and Dr Comber (the present and the ejected Masters of Trinity). The writer deplores the fact that he had heard of the fellowship after the fact and argues that "as themselves are counterfeit so are all their actions but personations, and perforce I cannot thinke you any more actually fellow than if you had taken to you a company of souldiers and by violence and force taken possession of what you now owne, neither can they claime their places by any other then a military title, as one of them was not ashamed to tell me." The writer urges Barrow to forsake the false title, and states that if Barrow thinks of applying himself to Dr Comber that he will endeavour to facilitate this through his connections.