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Album containing over 250 letters, notes, documents, unaccompanied envelopes, printed items, and photographic prints carrying the handwriting and/or autographs of sovereigns, prelates, government ministers, peers, authors, and Trinity College masters and professors, with a few unusual items in addition. The material appears to have been largely culled from the correspondence of George Peacock, his wife Frances Peacock, her father William Selwyn, and her second husband William Hepworth Thompson, with a few unrelated items. Most date from the 19th century but there are a few items from the 18th century.

Among those represented are King George III, Charles Babbage, E.W. Benson, the 15th Earl of Derby, the 7th Duke of Devonshire, W. E. Gladstone, Lord Houghton, Charles Kingsley, H. W. Longfellow, Lord Macaulay, Sir Robert Peel, John Ruskin, Adam Sedgwick, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, and William Whewell; there are in addition a miniature handwritten Lord's Prayer in a circle no larger than 15mm across, a carte-de-visite photograph souvenir 'balloon letter' from the Paris siege of 1870 with an image of the newspaper 'La Cloche', and a photographic print of Lane's portrait of George Peacock.

Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent. Enjoyed his visit to Harrow

Letter of 27 Jun. 1870 enclosing press cutting on homes of Tennyson and Longfellow.

Enclosing reminiscences of H. W. Longfellow.

40 Well Walk, Hampstead, N.W. - Should have written before to thank Bob for sending "The New Parsifal": has read it twice with 'great pleasure'', and could 'only find fault in detail'; though it is not as interesting as "Sisyphus" for the 'general public', it has great appeal for 'all aesthetes & intellectuals' who are most likely to read it. Lists a few criticisms, and passages which he particularly enjoys. Thinks Bob 'treat[s] Masefield more unfairly than Longfellow and Tennyson', and does not make as clear a point against him and Longfellow as he does against Tennyson. Is 'rather disappointed' with "New Numbers": thinks [Lascelles] Abercrombie's piece 'mannered in the bad sense' as well as 'allegorical [sic] in the bad sense'. Asks if Bob can 'coin' a word for him meaning 'of all women... or the womancratic... or the slave of all women'. Hopes that Julian is better and that Bob and Bessie are well.

Herstmonceux - They are all looking forward to WW's visit. JCH gives instructions on how best to reach them in Hurstmonceux. 'What a beautiful poem Evangeline is. It seems to me to have definitively naturalized the metre: at least it will do so in America. The story is evidently suggested by Hermann & Dorothea; yet the poem is thoroughly original, very like, yet totally different'. JCH longs to hear how the new system is working at the University - 'The new Professors, I suppose, have not downed their harness yet'. What does Sir James Stephen mean by Hazlitt's Life of Luther? Is the article on 'Faith and Reason' in the Edinburgh Review by Stephen? - 'the style has not the same ponderous Gibbonian rhetoric; and though parts are well & forcibly put, I think I wd hardly confound faith so entirely with belief, or join so entirely the thaumalurgie school of reasoners on the evidences'. JCH has read WW's piece on Hegel [On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's "Principia", 1849]: 'Hegel has never been one of my favorites, but the contrary. Still it seems to me that you treat him somewhat over-scurvily, as if he were a mere ass; whereas, with all my repugnance to many of his notions, I have never read twenty pages of him, without feeling that he was a very great thinker and writer'. Hegel is difficult to read in German let alone after he has been translated, and WW seems to have missed the sense of a couple of the sentences JCH checked with the original text.

16 Guildford Street, Russell Square, W.C. - Met Milnes years ago when Queen Adelaide was at Stowe and he and Disraeli were staying at Buckingham; he subsequently assisted her brother. Now seeks help for Emily De Lesdernier, who has been cruelly treated by her husband and suffered hardship to support her friends; gives details of De Lesdernier's life. Longfellow and Mary Howitt are friends; she gives public readings but also wishes to engage for private parties; her attempts at publication; she is currently employed 'at Wheeler & Wilson's 139 Regent Street where she is daily superintending the sale of their celebrated sewing machines'; asks if Milnes and Disraeli will consider assisting her.