Item 254 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Sir George Trevelyan

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The Shiffolds. - Had a 'very interesting visit to Cambridge' after his enjoyable one to Welcombe: went to see The Fairy Queen acted and sung 'chiefly by undergraduates' - this is Midsummmer Night's Dream, with 'operatic additions and ballets by Purcell'. It was 'an almost perfect entertainment; the spoken parts being acted and delivered as well as I have ever heard them on the English stage'. with the 'somewhat incongruous additions' also being 'excellently sung and staged'. Purcell's music was 'quite worthy of his fame as about the only great musician we have ever had during the last three centuries'.

Found everyone well at home: Julian is currently 'busy helping to light the twenty bonfires of brambles and brush' they have made in the 'clearing part of our copse'. A 'good bonfire is a delight to anyone, whether child or no'. Sends thanks to his mother for her letter, and asks his father to say that he has 'got [Robert] Bridges pamphlet on homophones', which was sent him as a 'member of the S.P.E. or Society for the Preservation of English [actually, the Society for Pure English]'. However, he imagines 'English will go its own way for good or evil, without troubling itself much about the S.P.E. or anything else'.