[ Henry Southgate, auctioneer and anthologist. ] Autograph Letter Signed to E. D. Girdlestone

4pp., 12mo. Two pages on bifolium with two-page postscript on loose leaf. In good condition, lightly aged. He thanks him for his 'kind note and opinion respecting my "Many Thoughts" [ anthology of 1857 ] of which nearly 267 - tons have been sold, an odd way of putting it you will say, but such is the fact.' He is working on a 'curious and suggestive book now on Aphoristic Wisdom'. He thinks he may 'gather something' from Girdlestone's 'Collection', which he undertakes will be 'most carefully and thankfully returned'. (This final anthology was never published, and the manuscript, in forty volumes, now resides in the British Library.) The postscript thanks Girdlestone for 'the Pamphlets', and comments on the Chinese as 'wretched people' who 'never required an importation for 4000 Years. Why, because they utilised their Manure and the

!'