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Chessel House.—Asks him to make corrections to the verses inserted over his name in this year’s Keepsake.

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Transcript

Chessel house {1} Dec[embe]r 7th | 1831

Sir

I return you Mr Bayly’s letter, which I must own, is some excuse for the insertion in the Keepsake, {2} that I complain of, as you could hardly imagine that he would have acted without my authority—I only regret that you did not read the lines with some little attention, as you must then have seen that some alteration was necessary in them, as well as Mr Bayly’s, {3} to make any thing like sense of them—Perhaps you were of opinion, that I was privileged to write nonsense, a privilege that I do not lay any direct claim to—Tho’ I may sometimes use it, I do not with to abuse it so egregiously—

If you have any copies remaining on hand, I wish you would with a pen blot out repose & substitute regret in the 3d stanza or at least that you would give me half a dozen or three or four copies that I may alter, & give to my friends—I have already done so with some that I have met—

Mr Parkhouse {4} the bearer of this will bring them to me—As a contributor I have a claim to one copy, & as a contributor of nonsense, I have a double or treble claim—On Mr Bayly’s conduct, I shall make no comment—He is now at Boulogne—

I remain, Sir
Your very humble Serv[an]t
Ashtown

The lines were addressed to Lady A—

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Dawson Turner has added at the top in pencil, ‘To C. Heath.’ The letters missing from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

{1} Lord Ashtown’s seat near Southampton, demolished in the 1920s.

{2} A literary annual, established by Heath in 1927. The 1832 edition contained verses by Ashtown ‘On being shown the tomb of a favourite dog’ (p. 73).

{3} Bayly had contributed to The Keepsake for 1829 and 1830, but no verses by him appear in the 1832 edition. Perhaps he submitted some and they were rejected.

{4} Probably George Parkhouse, who had married Ashtown’s niece in 1830.