Autograph Letter Signed ('S. Prout') from the painter Samuel Prout to the Secretary of the Athenaeum, Edward Magrath, an abject letter, describing his 'woeful plight' and complaining that he is 'out of mind'.

2pp., 4to. 29 lines of text. Bifolium. In very good condition, on lightly-aged mourning paper, with broken black wax seal. Reverse of second leaf addressed to 'E Magrath Esq | Athenaeum | Pall Mall'. The letter begins: 'Yes, Truth, (as you say) is better than a thousand apologies. | From the Evng I was last in town (when I met your respected & kind friend Mr. J. Burton, at Earl de Grey's conversazione) I have been chained to my pillow, & it is likely I shall remain so for some time to come, being obliged to submit to painful operations, & I fear the worst to come.' He is in a 'woeful plight', but hopes that his health 'will be kept up a little longer', and that 'it may please God to re-establish me as an artist, having almost forgotten the names of colours &c &c &c'. He may not see either friends nor newspapers, and 'the world is a sleep to me, altho I am awake day & night'. He asks Magrath to 'contribute a sheet, or half, or quarter, of chit chat fresh from the hurly-burly', as he is 'positively forbid to send invites' to his bedside'. He 'cannot say much', as he writes 'from my pillow'. He asks if 'DC: P.M: East [the printseller Dominic Colnaghi of Pall Mall East]' is 'out of life, out of town, or out of health': 'I hope neither, altho I am out of mind'. He ends 'When you are next in Warren St please to remember me kindly to Mrs. Savey & her good Pap-pa-'. According to his entry in the Oxford DNB: 'Ill health twice drove Prout from the city, first back to Plymouth from 1805 to 1808 and then to Hastings between 1836 and 1844. He suffered from disabling headaches and from congestion of the lungs throughout his life; the headaches have been linked to an attack of sunstroke in childhood.'