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BRYDGES, SIR EGERTON.

Holograph note signed and dated Tunbridge Wells Nov. 10, 1812, to poet and writer Robert Pearse Gillies.

Condition: Not particularly legible, but in very good condition.
Book ID: 28182

Physical Description

Single sheet folded to make four 23 x 18.5 cm pages, text on page one, integral address leaf and postal marks on page four. Approximately 100 words.

Comments

The antiquary, poet, and publisher of the Lee Priory Press, Egerton Brydges (1762-1837), writes to the Scottish poet, editor, and translator Robert Pearse Gillies (1788-1858) "to thank you very warmly for your last & to say that no man of feeling & taste can possibly see the high value of all you write in any other light than I do. If it were otherwise, all the tests of genius would be valueless." Gillies was an active member of the Edinburgh literati. He wrote an early memoir of Scott, an interesting imaginary voyage poem Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean (1826), and his Memoirs of a Literary Veteran (1851), in which he expresses his admiration for Brydges, is still worth reading. Despite a substantial inheritance and sufficient professional success, he lived a complicated life, and after the financial panic of 1825, was constantly in debt and in need of help from others.

Price: $325.00