Hacon & Ricketts, The Vale Press, No. 17, Craven St., Strand, London. - Is answering Trevelyan's letter at one, 'partly for the pleasure of writing the above amazing date' and also to reassure him 'about the Shakespeare': had taken Trevelyan's letter as 'confirmation of [Thomas Sturge?] Moore's verbal request', so his 'early married life won't be embittered by the arrival of two sets'; in fact he would probably need to go to a bookseller if he wanted a second set. Now will 'turn... from these prosy things' to picture Trevelyan composing Pindaric poems to the 'Hieron of our latter day Syracuse' [Pindar wrote praise poems for that ruler, while the Athenians later mounted a military expedition against Syracuse, which Holmes compares to the present-day Second Boer War]: the 'simple Paul Kruger will smile at the new & glorious pedigree' which Trevelyan invents for him and performs to the accompaniment of his 'bride's Χρυσεα φορμιγξ [golden lyre: a reference to Pindar's first "Pythian Ode"] in Pretoria or 'Johannisberg [sic]'. Meanwhile, he hopes Trevelyan's Pindar is 'unencumbered with [John William] Donaldson's superfluous & interminable notes'. Wishes him 'good wishes for the end of this self satisfied century'. Postscript saying that Trevelyan should write directly to Moore if he wants his proofs, as they have none at the Press.
Congratulates Trevy [on his engagement] and wishes him 'all happiness'; on hearing about it beforehand from [Charles] Holmes and [Laurence] Binyon, who had heard through [Sydney] Cockerell and Trevy's cousins the Fletchers, he had 'refused to believe it' due to what Trevy had told him about 'Mrs Costello[e] having tried to put about such stories'. However, when his sister heard the same from Miss [Bonté?] Amos, who said she had got the news from Trevy's mother, he 'had to allow it might be true'. Thinks Trevy will 'make a good husband', but that he will 'spoil all [his] children with indulgence' and thinks he should start being 'very stern' with himself so that he is able to look 'cross' enough at them; knows he is talking 'as if the little Homers and Aeschylluses [sic] and a Sappho or two were bound to turn up' and hopes they will. Keen to meet Trevy's fiancé; hopes she is not 'too like George' and suggests that the only indication which Trevy has given as to what she is like ''is very misleading and puts one deeper into darkness than total ignorance'. Asks how long Trevy has know her, and if she is 'connected with the admirers of the Dutch Milton [Vondel?]' whom he met at Taormina. Is to get a hundred pounds for editing Shakespeare [for the Vale Press] and fears it will take up a lot of time, so cannot promise to write an epithalamium. [Roger] Fry is 'of course quite wrong about Bellini', whom Moore admires as much as Fry does, but denies that he is 'characterised by passion by pathos or by Virgillian [sic] melancholy'; Bellini is a 'far greater master than Altdorfer' though Fry seemed to think he was comparing them. Sorry that Trevy is troubling to copy out Moore's "Danaë"; he could easily have got two copies made; hopes he will 'suggest how the hard sentences can be made easy, & the crooked straight, at the same time as pointing out their deficiency'. Hopes Trevy's fiancée 'will prove a Muse... though she is not going to enter the lists as a rival'.