Item 80 - Letter from Richard Sheepshanks

4 pp.

RS had hoped to be in Cambridge by now but three different plans came his way. He hopes to visit Canterbury via Rochester, Eltham and Maidstone, and then on to Brighton: 'There are a number of good Norman buildings as you well know on this coast and I am desirous of knowing a little more of our own architecture before I throw myself upon that of France'. RS's eyes feel stronger. He does not think he will now be in Cambridge until August and may consider spending the winter in France. He has been reading Taylor's perspective and has purchased a camera lucida: 'I have been a good deal pleased with the theory of perspective and if I could draw at all should have no doubt of using the precepts pretty soon'. Humphry Davy has resigned the Presidency of the Royal Society. RS contemplates his successor: 'I would try to get Herschel [John Herschel] and a Society Club room where strangers could be admitted. If this latter plan could be carried into effect it would very much simplify the finding a President as it would do away with the necessity of an establishment etc belonging to him'. Hyde Hall should now be called Lost Hall.

The Malcolm family plan to leave Hyde Hall in the autumn. WW, Julius Hare and Adam Sedgwick spent a great deal of time there during the 1820s.