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Monk Soham.—Thanks him for a copy of his book (the Bible Word Book), and reflects on the death of William Whewell. Invites him to stay, to give him an opportunity of consulting manuscripts at Helmingham. Discusses connections between English dialects and East Frisian.

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Transcript

Monk Soham
March 9. 1866.

Dear Mr Wright,

Many thanks for your book {1} which I have looked over with very great interest, and shall hope to have an early notice of in the Christian Advocate.

You have lost a Great Man at Cambridge {2}. I thought him looking so handsome, when I saw him a month ago. Age had given dignity to the hard features, and his white hair gave him a venerable look.

All his foibles and failings will be buried in his grave and forgotten: but he will live, specially among you at Trinity.

As regards any Chaucer M.SS. at Helmingham, I only know of one a fragment on paper, and I cannot trust my recollection as to what it is.

The books and M.S.S are not accessible save when Mr Tollemache is there.

Perhaps he may come down during the Whitsun Holydays.

Can you come and stay a few days with me, in case the Library is then accessible.

I will ask Bradshaw to come down with you, and you shall rummage one or two closets &c, which I don’t think have been sufficiently gone over.

I quite hold to your project about the General Dialecticon—to coin a word—and will gladly help in it.

I think I can furnish some good specimens of old Harvest-songs, and such old songs as go to tuneless tunes.

Did you ever hear a true Suffolk tune—“never ending, still beginning.”

Do you know a book—of which I carried off Vol. 1. the other day from the P.L.—which mightily amuses me.

“Firmenich, J. W. “Germaniens Völkerstimmen.”

I cannot make out much system in it, except that the series of dialects are topographically arranged. Perhaps the third Volume contains results.

I have gathered some very curious illustrations and Bremen dialects.

Perhaps things all known before, only having the special flavour to me of game taken by my own hunting.

E.G.

Do you know the Dorset Dialect? How constantly the words “I low” recur: “I low, twill rain tomorrow.”—I used to think this meant “I allow” by the figure of Tmesis—so convenient for amateur philologists.

But, lo ye {3}, in East Frisian. | (p. 18. Fermenich)

“De Dokter Liefpien het mi dar’n Dings an mien Schürdöer schreven, ich lör, ’t is Kremerlatien”

“Docter Liefpien had written me something about it on the — {4} door, I low, it is Kremer-(?) Latin.

(Elsewhere it is called “Dews-latien” = Dog-latin!!!

Then p. 42. Mundart Kiels.

“Ich glöw, et sull en Amtsverwalter sien.”

I low, it was an Official.”

So here we have “Ich glaube”. and Dorsetshire “I low” = I believe.

Tög = heng {5} = Dress = Toggery.

Noch ein Wortchen!

Moor = Mother | = Mor, Suffolk.

Yours sincerely,
Robert. W. Groome

I know so little of your Cambridge politics; but who will be your new master.
Mathison, Vaughan, Thompson? {6}

Has W.H.T. any chance?

Have you read E.F.G. “Mighty Magician” yet? {7}

[Second postscript:]

I open my letter to obtrude some advice.

In your list of books appended to your W.B. {8} I miss one book, which may be after all well known to you, but if not a book of great value for your Shakspere Glossary, if you are meditating such a Magnum opus.

“The Courtier of Count Baldesar Castilio – – – – done into English by Thomas Hobby. | London Printed by John Wolfe | 1588.

I meant to have excerpt† it for the Big Dic {9}, during poor H. Coleridge’s Life, but since then “fresh fields”—I cannot “pastures gay”—for they are sad at times—have occupied me.

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The first postscript was added at the head of the first sheet, the second on a separate slip. There are a few irregularities of punctuation, which have not been corrected. The letter was sent with two lists of notable words in Hoby’s translation of Castiglione’s Courtier (Add. MS b. 74/5/2).

{1} Wright’s Bible Word Book, first published this year.

{2} William Whewell, who died on 6 March.

{3} ‘lo ye’: reading uncertain.

{4} A question mark has been added above the dash.

{5} Reading uncertain.

{6} W. C. Mathison, C. J. Vaughan, W. H. Thompson, all Fellows of Trinity.

{7} Edward FitzGerald’s translation of Calderón’s play El mágico prodigioso, privately printed in 1865. There are six copies in Trinity College Library.

{8} i.e. the Bible Word Book.

{9} This is the apparent reading—perhaps short for ‘Big Dictionary’; but the reference is unclear.

Regrets he cannot dine in College, must go North to be with Isabella, who is seriously ill.

Includes letters by J. O. Halliwell, J. M. Heath about the August 1846 storm in Cambridge, H. Montagu Butler about a bust of Archdeacon Hare, Vernon Musgrave about a memorial to Archbishop Musgrave, with a draft from William Whewell to Vernon Musgrave.

Two letters relating to observations of tides.

Thanks Sidgwick for his letter. Reports that since they saw each other at Cambridge he has been reading the statutes of the [Whewell] International Law Professorship, and he believes that 'the founder of the Professorship contemplated the Professor being [ ] engaged in non-academical pursuits.' States however that his intentions regarding the India Office 'are independent of any question raised by Dr Whewell's will.' Believes that it would be 'extremely wrong' that any public servant should hold a seat on the Indian Council as well as two academic offices, viz., the Mastership of Trinity Hall and the International Professorship, and states that if he were to be appointed to the latter, he would resign from the Indian Council as soon as he could. His perception of the situation is that the electors, having surveyed the field of candidates, came to the conclusion that there was no one to be preferred to Maine, he would be invited to apply for the position. Suggests that it would be enough if he authorised Sidgwick to declare him a candidate; assures him that he is 'not for a moment suggesting that' Sidgwick vote for him. Asks him to let him know the result by telegraph when the election is over.

Fifteen letters from William Whewell, five letters from H. P. Hamilton, one each from Charles Heathcote and Christopher Wordsworth, and two from James C. Franks.

Volume of letters arranged alphabetically by correspondent, with usually no more than one letter per person, each correspondent identified at the top of the page on which the letter is mounted, in the form of an autograph book.

118: Includes note from Hon. Henrietta Maria Milnes to Richard Monckton Milnes [after 11 Apr. 1837?].
125: Contains account of William Whewell's fatal horse-riding accident, Feb. 1866.

Embossed notepaper, 'Palace, Abergwili, Carmarthen'. - Recollections of figures commemorated in Monographs, including 'the excellent renegade who treated us with anecdotes of Napoleon' [Suleiman Pasha?] at one of Houghton's breakfasts; accounts of von Humboldt and Whewell are surprisingly charitable. Landor well represented; 'I met him at Whewell's table. He unfolded his ideas of the most pressingly needed reforms of the Church. "I would give every Bishop £500 a year. The Bishop of London only should have £1000. And I would make it a capital felony for any Bishop to leave his Diocese." Whewell got very hot indeed and we narrowly missed a scene'. Sydney Smith's antipathy to Bishops appeared to be aggravated by seeing Thirwall.

Sends back 'both Proof and M.S.' [of The Methods of Ethics?, not included], which he read with interest. Acknowledges 'the difficulties attaching to the doctrine' criticised by Sidgwick, but does not believe them to be insuperable, 'or so considerable as the difficulties which the doctrine removes.' Admits that his lack of any adequate conception of Sidgwick's point of view, and also from the 'imperfect way' in which he has presented his own doctrine 'in the Whewell paper', he finds it impossible to present his case 'with any effect.' Suggests that the fundamental difference between their opinions is that while Sidgwick regards judgment of the actions of others as the primary moral fact, he [Martineau] finds it in judgment upon his own actions. States that he has never regarded the valuation of "Motives" as a method for determining the actions proper to pursue. Admits that the '"Moral Sentiments"' have their place 'among the scale of possible impulses', but claims that, if present, 'they cannot decide between the claims of the two competing impulses whose presence constitutes the problem, but can only add themselves on, as an intensification, to the [felt] authority of the higher.'

JSM's visit to Yorkshire, to dine with the Whewells at Blaise Castle, servants have arrived in the house

Wimpole Street - invitation to dinner to meet Whewell

Thanks Monk for his pamphlet on the Horfield Manor trust

Trevelyan notes that Geoffrey Winthrop Young told him the first time he saw Trinity as a boy with his father Sir George Young, he was told that his father saw William Whewell jump up the hall steps in cap and gown. Lord Adrian notes that he saw an undergraduate jump the steps in a gown after hall in summer in 1955 or so.

In response to a request that he execute the statue of William Whewell; is glad this means his statue of Macaulay pleased the authorities.

Encloses pages of a book for comment

8 Suffolk Street - sends further publication on metaphysics for comments

rooms in College for Blakesley, approves of R. L. Ellis as a tutor

invitation to breakfast

Rochester. - Thanks for Mr Monckton's letter about the Brewood election; resigned in defeat and would not have expressed annoyance; local favour prevailed over testimonial evidence; believes Mason's testimonials were fifth-rate; thinks more highly of Whewell, having received his gracious reply to congratulations; asks what Milnes thinks of the Morning Chronicle on himself and Disraeli on the Oxford Poetry question; Milnes should attend to personal matters this winter; 'you have not the obstacle of a College Fellowship to prevent it'.

Wishes that he could drop in on her, 'like William can, and see the [ ] lodge' for himself. Reports that their mother, 'after an ominous silence', sent him 'a laudatory but vague sentence about her.' Claims that he is 'a Galley Slave' that term, with a lecture at nine o'clock on Monday morning. Reports that he saw [Henry Weston] Eve the other day, 'but he looked more like Cambridge than Wellington College.' Reports that he has nearly got through the Old Testament, and shall have done all but Ezekiel by the time he goes down. Claims that the finest passages of the translation [from Hebrew to English] 'are destroyed by the barbarous fidelity of a ruthless German commentator.'

Reports that they have been having 'a violent university contest', and refers to Joe Mayor, who has lost his professorship [of political economy] by ten votes. Claims that the 'Bald-headed People in the university are confounded to find that the young men have elected a blind Radical [Henry Fawcett]'. States that he voted against Joe, 'purely on public grounds'. Announces that he is to dine with the Master on Monday, and is sure that he shall meet Miss Grote [Mayor's fiancée?] there.

Reports that Arthur is not well, and is 'plagued with the grandfather of all boils' on his finger. Reports that he saw Henry Bramley that day, and wonders whether he himself 'shall ever have so big a beard.' States that Oriental Studies 'are at a standstill [in Cambridge University] as [their] Hebrew Professor [Thomas Jarrett] is temporarily insane, and there is no one who can teach Hebrew or Sanscrit', and that besides him they have 'an Arabic Reader who never lectures except to at least two undergraduates...'

Asks her if she has seen any literature. Reports that there is 'a poetess who calls herself "Jean Ingelow" who is estimable', and that the 'Reviews have discovered that Woolners Poem [My Beautful Lady] is a swan', and does not think it 'a goose' himself. Asks how the house is getting on, and asks after Edward. Inquires as to whether the boys say the beer is bitter.

Hawarden - thanks for letter, Greek pun "incomparable", High Stewardship, intends to get the support of [William] Whewell, churchmen cannot be too learned, John Wordsworth ill.

Sends Whewell an "amusing and impudent fraud" sent to members of College some years ago [not present] as "evidence of the sort of things which can be attempted -- and perhaps are often successful".

This is volume one of a two volume set of copies of William Whewell's correspondence (see vol. II, O.15.47) gathered by Isaac Todhunter for his William Whewell, D.D. Master of Trinity College Cambridge. An account of his writings with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence London: Macmillan and Co., 1876, 2 vols. Many of the copies are not in Todhunter's hand, but some carry his notes. The source of the original letters is not always noted.
A note on letters used by Mrs Stair Douglas is laid in loose at the front of the volume.