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1 loose sheet at front: 'Copies. Letters from Carlyle - on "Cromwell", Extract of Letters from S[avile] M[orton]'

'Edward Fitzgerald. Littlegrange. Woodbridge' written on flyleaf, recto; on verso 'Letters from Thomas Carlyle, chiefly concerning Cromwell'

ff 1-36r: Copies by FitzGerald of letters from Carlyle, dated mid-Sept 1842-6 Nov 1874, with occasional notes and annotations by FitzGerald. Most letters written directly into book, though ff 34-36 (letter of 6 Nov 1874, not in FitzGerald's hand) pasted in.

ff 36v: Note by FitzGerald on 'the following Enquiries concerning th[e] one Long Parliament Election on record', sent to him by Carlyle in about 1846 or 1847 [in fact in 1844] 'to be answered & elucidated by Mr Davy, an old Suffolk Gentleman then residing in... Ufford near Woodbridge'. Davy was 'duly acknowledged & complimented as "Dryasdust"' in the paper Carlyle published on the subject in Fraser's Magazine [Oct 1844].

ff 37-39: Copy of the enquiries on the Long Parliament election (as above) sent by Carlyle to FitzGerald.

Reading from other end of book: 'Extract from letters of Savile Morton' written on flyleaf, verso; Morton's name later crossed out and 'an ill-starred Man of Genius'. 'Finished copying out at Midnight, Sunday May 27, 1866. Edward FitzGerald, Market-hall, Woodbridge' is legible below despite further crossing out. A loose sheet is pasted to the bottom of the flyleaf, on which Fitzgerald has written 'Fragments of some Letters from an ill-starred Man of Genius'' and added in pencil below 'for a Notice of Morton see at th[e] end of th[e] Letters'; other notes in pencil are probably in another hand.

ff i-iii: Three sheets bound together with tape found loose after flyleaf, containing a biographical note on Morton in FitzGerald's hand.

ff 1-61r: Copies by FitzGerald of letters from Morton, dated 28 Oct [18]40-Jul 1845, with occasional notes and annotations by Fitzgerald. Occasional pages have been cut out, and a series of stubs (about 11 ff) follows f 61. The letters themselves, or portions of them, are sometimes pasted in, particularly to include illustrations by Morton, as follows:

f 5r: 'Petrarch's Chair', pen and ink illustration
f 16r: Part letter of 10 Sept 1842 (once pasted in, now loose)
f 17r: Part letter with pen and ink sketch of ruins in Rome
f 23r: Pen and ink sketch of lamp.
f 50: Part letter, discussing Keats.

Chelsea. - Has sent FitzGerald's name to the London Library, and he should hear from the Librarian as soon as a committee has admitted him as a member; 'You will find it a very real convenience, I do expect, to be admitted freely to such an extent of Book-pasturage...'

'You may depend upon it Dryasdust is highly gratified with the notice taken of him. Pray sound him, from the distance, and ascertain: I have still a great many Suffolk questions that I could ask him.— I am getting a little better with my poor Cromwell in these days; I really must have done with it, if only to save my own life...' A note at the top of the letter in FitzGerald's hand identifies 'Dryasdust' as ' D. E. Davy Esq: of Ufford, a polite handsome old Gentleman, who had collected over 80 folios of Suffolk History, which he finally bequeathed to the British Museum...'

Visit of Alfred Tennyson, who should have a state pension: ' A hundred and fifty to Alfred, I say; he is worth that sum to England! It should be done, and must.'

Chelsea. - Refers to a letter of 'the good Mr Davy’s,—whom I will never call Dryasdust more! He is a man of real knowledge in his own innocent department, and has a most courteous disposition. Pray thank him very kindly in my name'.

Chelsea. - Asks FitzGerald to look over 'Two Leaves [of proofs] on Naseby'; the new Cromwell letters and 'botherations' are 'really very distressing' to him as he has to find a way to incorporate them into his Cromwell book when he thought it was done with. Discussion of Cobden and Corn Law repeal. Asks whether Davy will know anything about Sir John Burgoyne, MP during the Long Parliament, and his son Roger.

(Transcript by Turner. At the head is written, ‘The original in Cotman’s Brasses’, i.e. a copy of J. S. Cotman’s Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk.)