Showing 22 results

Postmarked Boston, Mass. - Musical notation for three lines of doggerel ancient Greek [said to have been composed at Cambridge by Richard Porson].

Letters, including drafts of letters, statements of account, an inventory, and Stamp Office receipts for legacy duties, many of them sent to, drafted by, or signed by Siday Hawes on behalf of his wife Elizabeth, Richard Porson's sister, with Stamp Office receipts for nephews Julius and Frederic Porson. Correspondents include James Parry, Samuel Sotheby of Leigh and Sotheby, George F. Tavel, Wilkie & Robinson, John Marshall, and John Hailstone, with a draft letter addressed to Dr. [Matthew?] Raine. Contains multiple references to the disposition of Porson's library, and sums paid by Trinity College Library, and auctioneers Leigh and Sotheby.

Travel journal of a tour of Greece dated 15 Apr.-11 June 1856 with rough sketches and geographical and architectural observations, notes on people met, food encountered, weather, and transportation (item 1). Accompanied by Latin and Greek compositions dating from early days with his private tutor Thomas Scott at Gawcott, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, many of them drafts and fragments, and including compositions for Medal and Fellowship exhibitions, with compositions and verses by others: [John William?] Donaldson, Charles Merivale, E. M. Cope, and John [Smith?] Mansfield. The compositions include one headed "Macaronic verses written a few years ago by Professor Porson, during the alarm of an invasion", and two statistical tables in an unidentified hand, "A Display at one View, of the Number of Books, Chapters, Words and Verses contained in the Old and New Testaments, with other curious information connected with the Sacred Writings", and another listing numbers of people in the world, numbers of places of worship in London, consumption of good in London, inhabitants of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in 1802. With other notes, possibly lecture notes, many of them fragmentary, and an undated letter from Elizabeth di Spineto.

Reports that having just appointed a chairwoman at Dublin Castle, he now has to 'make a Professor of Greek at Cork.' Asks him what the Cambridge honours in the enclosed list [not included] amount to. Declares that '[a]t the same time you don't need a Porson for an Irish Queen's College.' States that there are 'one or two excellent men standing', but that he would like to appoint a Royal University man 'if decency should not happen to forbid.'

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Glad to hear that Robert has landed safely; 'awful to read' of the passengers on the cross-Channel boats kept at sea all night by bad weather; asks 'is even Assisi worth such a price?'. Would love to see Arezzo again and wants to know what the hotel was like; it used to be spoken of as the 'best hotel between Florence and Rome', before Brufani [at Perugia], and he thinks his parents and sister were 'the first names in the hotel book'. Notes what Robert says about [Samuel Butler's] "Fair Haven" and will see to it. Cannot 'manage Conrad as a novelist', nor Chesterton as an essayist. has been reading about the Phalaris controversy with great 'interest and amusement'; George gave him a copy of Attenbury's 1698 book a while ago, and he got Bentley's "Phalaris" as a prize at Harrow; they bear out everything that [Thomas] Macaulay says. Good to be 'in company with so strong and able a man as Bentley', whatever the topic; he is an even greater controversialist than Newman, Porson, Gibbon or Pascal.

Enquires if there are any editions of Eucharius in the Manchester library

c/o Mrs Wilson, Myers Farm, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Thanks his father for his letter, and for enclosing Dr Jackson's letter, which Robert returns; it is 'altogether... very interesting and delightful', and he is interested to see Jackson 'classes Housman with Porson and Munro'. Has seen some of Housman's work on Aeschylus, which is 'very brilliant, perhaps almost too bold'; Housman later gave up Greek scholarship completely, and 'probably is now the greatest living English Latin scholar', though Robert is 'unfamiliar with his work, except his preface to Manilius, which is very amusing at the expense of his predecessors'. The text of Manilius, however, does not attract Robert enough for him to work at it. Housman is 'an agreeable person to meet at the Trinity High-table'. It is 'remarkable that a really great scholar should be himself an English poetical classic, a small one, no doubt, but very complete and genuine so far as he goes'.

Dr. Jackson's 'remarks on the future of English scholarship are very interesting'; fears they may be true, though past scholarship 'will have rendered the classics far more accessible in future for those who go to them for their own sake', and these may be 'almost as many as in the old days of universal compulsory classics'. A 'certain type of higher-brained scholarship will also probably be kept alive by the constant discoveries of papyri in Egypt and elsewhere'; recently saw a papyrus of 'a great part of Theocritus, containing many new readings', which he does not think has been edited yet. This should be 'of great interest, since Theocritus is an old battle-ground for emendators, so a really early MS might have a lot of amusing surprises'.

Has 'always thought Petronius a little over-rated', but as far as he remembers, the banquet of Trimalchio is 'far the best part'. Generally, he used to much prefer Apuleius' Golden Ass; could 'never read the Greek novels, except Longus [his Daphnis and Chloe], which is not a novel but a prose pastoral', the loveliest he knows 'in any language'.

Is very glad that his mother will be well enough to go to Welcombe on Friday. Leaves here on Friday; the Shiffolds will be his address, though he will not actually be back there for a few days. Has to be in London on Thursday, 'trying to hurry up the printing' of the Annual [of New Poetry]

Trinity College - Concerning a portrait of Dr Porson.

Commonplace book with verses (including "Gray's Elegy parodied by W. Benwell") and epigrams (from Porson and Mansel). At the front of the book is A New Common-Place Book, in which the plan recommended and practised by John Locke, Esq. is enlarged and improved, by a Gentleman of the University of Cambridge, Second Edition. Cambridge, 1777.

Vaughan spoke eloquently about George Butler, has received a Porson autograph.

Gayton. Requests Webster's 'Dictionary' and Boucher's 'Glossary', was obliged to withdraw from the contest for the Chancellor's Medal due to illness, kindness of Porson

Encloses an undated letter from R. T. Johnson to her husband Henry Montagu Butler about a miniature of Richard Porson, which she says she is leaving at the Library.

Preparations for the first volume of the Museum Criticum, Blomfield's remarks on The Electra to be incorporated inMonk's article, notices of new classical books, Monk's 2nd edition of Hippolytus, disagreement between Monk and Dobree over the editing of Porson's Aristophanes

By 'W. W.': William White?

Portrait in vestibule of Wren Library.

Written by the son of the Rev. Thomas Kidd, enclosing his father's books which he is donating to Trinity College and explaining the connection to Richard Porson and mentioning that he has annotated the copy of "The Persae".

Monk has made his peace with Dobree, Barker's forgeries, Burges' review of Porson's Adversaria, John Murray wishes to sell Museum Criticum

Concerning Porson's seal.