Pièce 29 - Letter from A. E. Housman to W. H. Semple

1 folded sheet, 1 envelope

(With an envelope.)

—————

Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
11 May 1933

Dear Semple,

Thank you for your letter. I had no idea that you were there.

Yours sincerely
Serius Augurinus {1}.

[Direction on envelope:] W. H. Semple Esq | The University | Reading

—————

The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 5.15 p.m. on 11 May.

{1} The allusion appears, at first sight, to be to one of several men of this name, all with the praenomen Gaius, who served as consul or as one of the duumviri quinquennales in the first century AD; but perhaps, in a modest reference to his own poetical achievements, Housman is referring to Sentius Augurinus, a minor poet commended by Pliny the Younger, who is conjectured to have been named Serius in an inscription. See The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1844), iv. 123.