Item 24 - Letter from William Gunn to John Gunn

2 folded sheets

Smallburgh.—Urges him to take care of his mental health, and refers in detail to his own difficulties in early life. Sends news of friends and family at Yarmouth.

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Transcript

Smallburgh Saturday Aug. 4.

My dear John,

If I had not the present opportunity to avail myself of, I dare say I should [not] {1} have replied to your letter which I found here last night on my return from Yarmouth. The truth is I feel extremely anxious of the score of your health, I mean not only that of your body, but as to what is closely allied to it, that of your mind. A relaxation of employment and better living may secure both: of what use is care and assiduity without them? I once suffered greatly myself from a similar cause, and there is some similarity in our intellectual rudiments

My father {2} you have heard me say, bent {3} to adverse fortune at a period when I most wanted his assistance. He was respectable from situation and connections, of good parts and possessing talents for business. He never used any exercise throughout the day, in the evening he always indulged in convivial social society and it is difficulty† to say to which he was most addicted. From this way of life, he became extremely corpulent, which with frequent returns of gout, rendered him unfit for regular employment. No longer equal to it, his place of collector was taken from him when he was between 60, and 70, and as a proof that the commissioners respected his services, made him a sinecure office and he spent the last 7 years of his life in London. When the reverse abovementioned happened he was at Oxford, where [he] had been stationed two or three years, and he then possesesed† a small fortune, part of which was put out to a man at Burford who {4} (with the bondsman also became a Bankrupt,) and part in the funds. The profits of his place were limited, and when he died the wreck of his property consisted only of 200£ in the 4 P[e]r Cents. Professional views for me being at an end my father yielded to a speculative advanture, as prompted by a well meaning friend (which in the event proved a nullity)—and I after unavailing opposition, was placed in a way of life for a short period, to which I was compelled to yield, at too late an age, had I had† not survey’d it with feelings of utter disgust. Luckily or unluckily the family where I was, treated me with the kindness of a son, they being of independent fortune and indifferent as to business I was left to follow my own inclination and my time was spent not in study but in reading. I read and read from morning till night and often the contrary, with little profit to myself, for I had no one to superintend and direct me—my thoughts were desultory and my ideas were unclassified. The glutton of the stomach and of the head, suffer equally from indigestion. I suffered accordingly, I became to a great degree nervous, and from the age of 18 to 25 laboured under head aches in {5} (part from uneasiness from present suffering and future prospects) of the most afflictive kind.

I was obliged to abate of my constant amusement and though I could not always apply yet the passion for reading still survived and was employed in trifling things hostile to strength of mind and correctness of thought: the effect of which I have always yielded to ever since. At that time also as a resource from injured health, I was constant[ly] quacking myself to a bad purpose, and that from a nostrum then in great vogue, called Wards drop afterwards discovered to be a solution of corrosive sublimate of mercury. As soon as I was my own master I laid a plan of obtaining orders. In this having succeeded I was ordained on a title to Irstead and Barton. More solitariness of place and person is not to be conceived. The vulgar saying of being “dropt from the clouds” was truly applicable to my case. Without a friend or acquaintance, or even any one to exchange the commonest idea with I was resolved to accomodate† myself to things about me as well as determined [to] live within my income which was only 42 guineas a year and I would have done so had it been half that sum. Intending however that after taking priests orders, to remove to curacies in Surrey where my fathers connexions then were; Windsor I tasted {6} as a sort of Cannon a preference given from Mr Winfield my godfather a man of fortune (who lived there) and Dr Hurdis one of the Canons who from early life had known my father (his son was professor of poetry at Oxford) and Mrs Hurdis had been a schoolfellow at Lewes, of my mother. {6} This plan however the fates forbade; it was a year before I was in full orders, in that interval I had engaged the curacy of Sloely† also and felt a growing intimacy with Mr Norris of Barton and Mr Preston of Beeston, whose houses and confidence were in a manner mine. As these gentlemen were only half year birds, three winters went over my head without a complaint[.] I never ran in debt; I never received any thing from my father but the present of a gown and cassock, and one one of three guineas. My winters amusement was confined to the use of the Beeston library then a very good one and of which the key was intrusted to me in the absent of the family. After this you must call imagination in aid to fill up the outlines of my lot. After I had been 3 years at Irstead my father died, when I offered my Mother the profits of one of my curacies, or to share with me the apartments I had allotted to me in the house at Irstead. She preferred the latter. We lived together 3 years there, in 1779. The bishop without any solicitation of mine (almost without my knowledge), {8} gave me the two Hovetons, at the request of Mr Blofeld and at the same time the vicarage of Felmingham by that of Mr Norris (these were exchanged by B[isho]p Bagot in 1786 for Irstead and Barton.) In 1783 I obtained Sloely from George Lord Orford solely through the solicitation of George Cubitt. On receiving my first preferment there being no dwelling, and regular housekeeping too expensive for us, I made my mother some allowance, and she went to board with her neiece† Mrs Sundall {6} at Richmond—It happened too about the same time a great part of the Burford defalcation was fortunately recovered. {9} I little thought when I began of entering upon such a lengthy detail—to express what I meant in a few word[s]—I only intended to caution you as to your health—and that you preserve composure of spirit—& avoid the incorrectness which I have through life been the victim of. I have written so hastily as to render myself perhaps not always intelligible but you know what my heart towards you is. At present if you feel the weather equally annoying, you had better come among us till the heats abate. When do you plan taking your degree? I fear by your own account you will encounter much difficulty to suiting yourself with rooms—& if so it might be better with all their objections to continue where you are for another quarter. I yesterday deposited Catherine at Yarmouth. Harriet better than she was the last time I saw her[.] At Mr Turners, Mr König, keeper of the natural history, at the British Museum—a sensible man possessing that simplicity and honesty so estimable in the better part of the german character—he is a martyr to dispression† of spirits, and chews opium. Dr Hooker has not yet accepted the professorship of botany to the London institution which is offered to him.

In our way to Yarmouth we called on George Francis who gave us a basket of Apricots for Harriet. [About five lines have been scribbled over here, so as to render them illegible.] Francis also says, that R: Rising is likely to obtain a fellowship in his college, {10} Mr Johnson having finished his house intends inhabiting at michalemas†: I do not hear that Walham {6} is let.

I am
Y[ou]rs affectionately
W Gunn

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Two folded sheets. Dawson Turner has written ‘To Jno Gunn Esq.’ at the head and added the year ‘1827.’ below the date. A few short words or parts of words appear to have been omitted in haste, and there are a few other slips. The omissions have been supplied in square brackets, along with the missing letters of three words (‘Per’, ‘Bishop’, and ‘Yours’) abbreviated by superscript letters. There are also a number of irregular spellings, not all of which have been marked. There are several pencil crosses in the margin and on the portion of the guard attached to the second sheet, which were evidently made after the letter was bound.

{1} Omitted by mistake.

{2} Alexander Gunn, an excise officer.

{3} Probable reading.

{4} Preceded by an opening bracket, struck through. The succeeding bracket should have been deleted instead. Cf. the next note.

{5} The opening bracket should have been drawn before this word instead of after it.

{6} Reading uncertain.

{7} Naomi Hurdis was born at Bishopstone in Sussex.

{8} ‘(almost … knowledge)’ is interlined above ‘solicitation of’, but evidently belongs here.

{9} There is a larger space than usual between this sentence and the next.

{10} Pembroke College, Cambridge. This did not in the event happen, and Rising was called to Bar the following year. See Alumni Cantabrigienses.

† Sic.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2022.