[ James Atlay, Bishop of Hereford. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('J. Hereford') to 'Bateman', on the evils of 'excessive smoking', and giving a bon mot by Archbishop Magee.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. He begins by stating that, as he takes the Eagle newspaper, he has 'seen your poem & Bowling's version', before continuing: 'The only comfort that I can find in the smoling - excessive smoking - of the present day is that the Tobacco is less disagreeable and (I hope) less noxious than the weed of my youth'. He is not himself a smoker, 'but my boys smoke, to excess I think'. He concludes by explaining that he and his family are 'out for a month's rest & change; it is rumoured here that Archbp Magee was pressed to write in the Visitors' book at Harrogate, which he unwillingly dead. | "Came here for change and rest; the waiters got the first, and the Landlord the rest."' (This would appear to be the earliest telling of a bon mot much circulated around the turn of the century.) In a postscript he adds that the family 'go on to Edinburgh next, my son in law Harrison being one of the Masters at Fetters College, & his wife having enriched the world with a Son, the 2nd child; the first being a daughter'.