Autograph Manuscript Signed ('M Berry') by the diarist Mary Berry, sister of Agnes Berry and friend of Horace Walpole, a flight of fancy headed 'Devonshire Cottage to its well-beloved Mistress [Hon. Mrs George Lamb], Greeting -'.

4pp., 12mo. 75 lines. On bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. The entire document is in Mary Berry's autograph. The letter proper, of 57 lines, is signed 'Devonshire Cottage / a true Copy / M Berry', the joke, such as it is, being that Mary Berry has copied out a document written by Devonshire Cottage itself to its owner, the Hon. Mrs George Lamb (Caroline, or 'Caro George' Lamb, from whom the Berry sister's were leasing it). An eighteen-line postscript, dated 'Monday 1st July', and also signed 'M Berry', is written in a straightforward style, with the valediction reading 'And so God bless'. The first sixteen lines read: 'This is to inform her [i.e. Mrs Lamb], that at this present writing I [i.e. Devonshire Cottage] am in great health & beauty, that I am taken especial care of by your two Lieutenants [i.e. the Berry sisters], & that I am very much admired by all their friends & acquaintance, who have poured in upon me in numbers during the last six weeks - They have constantly occupied me, in the way that you recommended, making the4 dining Room what it was intended to be, which your Tenants, as well as every body else, find so much more agreeable & convenient, that they only wonder it could ever have been otherwise arranged -'. The rest of the letter includes references to the refurbishment of the house, to General Piggott, to Lord Morpeth and Lady Mary, and to Lady Scott, with the Cottage 'begging you to present my Villaships respects to the Palacehood of Castle Howard'.