Showing 17 results

20 Marlborough Square, Chelsea.—Praises Milnes’s poem on the funeral of Miss Berry, and encloses some poems of his own.

—————

Transcript

20 Marlbro Sq | Chelsea
1 Dec 1852

My dear Sir

It is not the first time I have had the pleasure of addressing you, having formerly sent to you a small Vol the feeble effort of my Muse, (“Spring Buds 1844”) and also some lines on the Coronation of Her present Majesty. I merely allude to these trifles by way of preface & recalling to your recollection my former correspondence. But the object of my present writing is to express to you my most cordial thanks for the gratification I yesterday derived from reading your simple but touching Poem on the funeral of Miss Berry. 27 Nov 1852. in the Times[.] I know not indeed when I have perused (in recent days) a Poem that has so pleased me Descriptive—simple, solemn—earnest, philosophic—Christian[—]every thing that could be desired[.] If people & poets would but only feel as you express yourself how much of real Poetry if we had but eyes to see & hearts to feel of there is in our every day path & how flowers & affection might be bid to bloom in many a spot now flat, stale, and unprofitable but, thank GOD, there are still left on the Earth some few (though but few I fear) who appreciate the gifts of heaven in Patience, Providence, and Grace; that you my dear Sir may long be spared to adorn our Literature and our Senate is the very sincere wish of

Yours very sincerely
Saml Shepherd F.S.A.

PS. I have taken the liberty of enclosing with this hurried but hearty scrawl—two or three Sonnets & Poems I have recently composed. One on the loss of our great Duke {2} & a small Poetical tribute to the Memory of the late talented Dr G. A. Mantell.

—————

{1} Brackets supplied. ‘“Spring Buds 1844”’ is interlined.

{2} The Duke of Wellington, who had died on 14 September.

Enclosing copy of letter, 2 Jul. 1847, from Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, in response to enquiry from N. Edkins (also copied).

Letters dated 20 May 1842 and 23 June 1842.

Thanks JCH for his letter concerning WW's dilemma [WW is unsure whether to take a college living or become a country clergyman, see WW to JCH, 15 Dec. 1840]: 'I shall have to think about it a good deal longer before I have done with it'. WW has not got JCH's sermon with him, but if WW differed with it in his last letter 'it must have been rather a remnant of my disputationess, which you know of, than any serious difference of thinking' [see WW to JCH, 15 Dec. 1840]. Although he doubts whether JCH 'could establish a tenable distinction between maxims and principles'. WW questions whether there could be 'any solid ground for a moral decision in talking of matters of principle' until we had established a system of principles. Whereas he sees no reason to limit maxims and gives the following example: 'the Governors of a state are not to acknowledge that they act from fear of those who threaten to violate the laws - and on this ground I condemn the D. of W.'s [Duke of Wellington] manner of passing the Catholic Relief Bill - for I with you do not pretend to decide the rightness of the measure itself by means of such maxims'. WW is to visit Rev. Waddington in his parish of Masham to discuss further WW's suitability in succeeding him.

Oriel College - If, in his last letter, EH sounded like he shared in the general opinion about Prince Albert - 'I must have expressed myself ill; for I had been undeceived by that time in fact by our Chancellor'. EH hopes WW did not dislike their Report to the Duke [Duke of Wellington], which in substance coincided very much with your Memorial'. He does not know whether it was the Duke of Wellington or Lord John Russell who allowed the letters to be printed by the public papers: 'Certainly we did not publish them. In fact no one here had even seen the Duke's two notes to Lord John till they appeared in the Papers' [concerning the proposed Commission to investigate the Universities].

Hagley - conduct of the Duke of Wellington, responsibility of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill, Lyttelton's amendment

Embossed notepaper, The Athenaeum. - Supplies information about [published?] letter from the Duke of Wellington to Dumouriez, 26 Nov. 1814, on military matters.

Trinity College. Presumes Peterborough to be in a terrible state due to floods, Trinity paddocks, avenue and Trinity Lane and Midsummer Common all under water, Shilleto on Tacitus, H M Butler to attend the lying-in-state of the Duke of Wellington.

Advice on attending the funeral of the Duke of Wellington.

Trinity College Cambridge. Visit to Harrow and the Houses of Parliament, impressions of the Duke of Wellington, Hawkins made Pitt Scholar, the first University Scholar that Harrow produced.

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Likes Robert's account of the hunt [see 46/202]; comments on 'heredity', and there being a Cadbury on the hunt [Laurence John Cadbury?]; compares it to the two 'members of the eleven at Harrow' writing home that there was a young Trevelyan who 'played up'. Interested to hear about Aunt Annie [Philips] who 'does too much', like 'dear Booa' [Mary Prestwich] who has been very unwell; they have got a nurse for her. Has been reading [Frances] Lady Shelley's diary, published by John Murray, which has the 'pleasantest' and he expects truest picture of Wellington at the 'height of his career'. They have been reading the life of Ruskin by [Edward Tyas] Cook; not sure why it has not been more highly praised, unless it is that Ruskin's 'inordinate mass of writing, extraordinary want of self-control, and his ravings about myths and etymologies' tire ordinary readers more than they do Sir George.

Signed in print by Derby.

Volume with the title page "The Lyndhurst Papers used by Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B. in writing The Life of Lord Lyndhurst published in 1884." The letters and writings have been tipped in and pasted in with cutouts to show both sides. The letters include those from Queen Victoria (to Lady Lyndhurst), Earl Grey, George Washington (to J. S. Copley senior), George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, T. B. Macaulay, the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir Robert Peel, King William (1835), Prince Albert, Maria Edgeworth, Lord Brougham, the Earl of Derby, and W. E. Gladstone.