JOSHUA

[A Scottish Royal Navy Midshipman in the Napoleonic Wars.] Autograph Letter Signed to his mother from Robert Kennedy Thomson of Daljarrock, giving news from HMS Imperieuse, and commenting on news from Scotland.

Author: 
Robert Kennedy Thomson of Daljarrock, Ayrshire, Scotland, Royal Navy Officer in the Napoleonic Wars [HMS Imperieuse; Sir Henry Duncan; Vice-Admiral Sir Joshua Ricketts Rowley]
Publication details: 
‘H.M. Ship Imperieuse Port Mahon [Minorca] / Jany. 12th. 1813.’
£180.00

See Thomson’s entry in O’Byrne’s ‘Naval Biographical Dictionary’ (1849). He had entered the navy in 1811, ‘on board the Impérieuse 38, Capt. Hon. Henry Duncan’, and would retire with the rank of Lieutenant, after a reasonably eventful career, in 1829. In 1849 he was said by O’Byrne to be ‘a Captain in the Ayrshire Militia’. On 30 September 1864 the London Gazette listed him among the ‘Lieutenants on Reserved List, to be Retired Commanders’.

[John Wolcot, Peter Pindar; satirist] Two Letters [File copies?], Unsigned, from Wolcot to Henry Colburn, publisher [both docketed Sir Joshua Reynolds | sent to Colborn [sic] Bookseller

Author: 
John Wolcot, Peter Pindar (baptised 9 May 1738 – 14 January 1819), Satirist.
Pindar
Publication details: 
No place or date [trimmed]. Watermark Letter One 1809.
£250.00
Pindar

Total five pages, 8vo, trimmed (perhaps removing a place and date), closed tear on one fold, mainly good condition. This form of the letters (file copies?) was obviously in John Rope Rogers' mind in his Biographical Sketch, introducing Opie and His Works Being a Catalogue of 760 Pictures by John Opie [...] [1878]: The following letter of Dr. Wolcot's, indorsed,On Sir Joshua Reynolds; sent to Colborn, Book-seller was found in a collection of published and unpublished remains of Dr. Wolcot, which was sold at Puttick and Simpson's, May 17th, 1877.

[Judge Jeffreys of the Bloody Assizes.] Printed pamphlet: 'A Pindarick Congratulatory Poem To the Right Honourable George, Lord Jeffreys, Baron of Wem, and Lord High Chancellor of England To the High and Mighty Monarch King James the II. &c.'

Author: 
'By Joshua Barnes, M.A. One of the Senior Fellows of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge' [Joshua Barnes (1654-1712); Judge Jeffreys [George, Lord Jeffreys, Baron of Wem, Lord Chancellor]; Bloody Assizes]
Publication details: 
London, Printed, and are to be sold by Walter Davis in Amen-Corner. 1685. [On title-page: 'IMPRIMATUR, | S. Blithe, Procan. Acad. Cantab. | Octob. 5. 1685.']
£450.00

7pp, folio. On four leaves. In good condition, lightly aged. In worn modern half-binding of brown leather spine and corners and cloth covers, split at hinge. The poem is of 124 lines, arranged in five irregular stanzas. A nauseating exercise in brazen sycophancy, written in the aftermath of the Bloody Assizes. Not mentioned in Barnes's entry in the Oxford DNB, which does state that his 'adulation for the Stuarts [...] probably continued undiminished' with the accession of William and Mary.

[ John Burnet, painter ] Autograph Letter Signed "Jno. Burnet" to the Secretary of the Belgrave Institution about a lecture.

Author: 
John Burnet, (1781 or 1784–1868), Scottish engraver and painter
Publication details: 
2 Whiteheads Grove, [London] 12 August 1837.
£180.00

One page, 4to, fold marks sl. turned corners, mainly good condition. "I should have much pleasure in complying with the wish of the lecture committee but now having given a public lecture I am totally unprovided with diagrams of a large size, without which it would be impossible to convey instruction on any branch of the fine Arts - perhaps at some other time my attention may be turned to this subject when it wiull be a gratification to comply with this request."

[Sir Joseph Paxton.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Joseph Paxton') to 'Mr. Smith', regarding the financing of a project, with reference to Sir Joshua Walmesley and 'the liberal party'.

Author: 
Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865), landscape gardener and architect, designer of the Crystal Palace, head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, Derbyshire [Sir Joshua Walmesley (1794-1871)]
Publication details: 
Chatsworth [Derbyshire]. 6 September 1848.
£220.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper. The letter begins: 'My dear Sir, | Having a day to spare, and having a little business in London, I left home by midnight mail yesterday, but unfortunately got into the smash that took place on the North Western line [i.e.

[Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.] Autograph Letter Signed to an unnamed male recipient, regarding a portrait of David Garrick.

Author: 
Campbell Dodgson (1867-1948), Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and art historian [David Garrick]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London. 21 June 1928.
£80.00

1p., 12mo. In fair condition, on lightly-aged paper, with a small closed tear to one edge. He informs the recipient that his portrait of Garrick is 'the second state of the engraving: the first is before all letters. | The person who engraved the lettering evidently made a mistake.' He notes an inscription sometimes found on impressions of the second state of the engraving, and change made in the third state.

Autograph Letter Signed ('Jane Halliday') to an unnamed Lord of the Admiralty.

Author: 
Lady Jane Halliday [née Tollemache] (1750-1802), English society beauty painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds [Lord Hugh Seymour; the Royal Navy]
Publication details: 
Grove Cottage near Cowes'. Undated, but docketed '22 Sept: 1800'.
£120.00

4to, 1 p, 12 lines. Very good, on aged paper. Asking the recipient 'through this medium to recommend my son Lieut Halliday [Francis Halliday, born around 1776; fl. 1820] of the Thunderer, now at Jamaica, to the notice of Lord Hugh Seymour; Sir Hyde Parker has sent me an account of him, but to my great disappointment has not brought him Home - - - - - Francis has been six years in the East & West Indies & very attentive to his profession'. She feels sure that 'a line from yr. Lordship to Lord Hugh could not fail of being of great use to him'. Docketed on reverse 'Mem: Enquire abt.

Autograph Letter Signed to Rosa Tuckwell [nee Strong, b.1829/30], wife of William Tuckwell (1829-1919).

Author: 
Mary Campbell [AUTOGRAPHS; Sir Joshua Reynolds; Rev. William Tuckwell]
Publication details: 
No date [but between 1858 and 1878]; Wheatleigh.
£100.00

Four pages, 12mo. Very good on lightly aged paper. She apologises for only sending 'two words of Sir Joshua Reynolds' writing', and hopes she may some day 'succeed in getting a more valuable autograph'. It was given to her 'by a great niece' of the artist, 'and was cut out of a manuscript of some work on Engravings, which he had prepared for the press'. They are glad to hear of Tuckwell's 1878 'appointment to the living of Stockton': 'I trust many years of rest and happiness are in store for you in that quiet retreat'.

Autograph Signature ('Abram: Hume') on fragment of frank.

Author: 
Sir Abraham Hume (1749-1838), connoisseur
Publication details: 
Without date or place.
£20.00

Paper dimensions roughly 2 x 5 cm. Good, although on discoloured paper, and mounted on piece of slightly larger discoloured paper docketed in pencil 'Sir Abm Hume'. Reads 'Free 274 | [signed] Abram: Hume'.

Autograph Letter Signed to Joshua Sharpe.

Author: 
Edward Blakeney
Publication details: 
Mahon the 8th. November 1753', Mahon, Minorca.
£125.00

The recipient Joshua Sharpe (c.1716-86) was a solicitor of Lincoln's Inn, and counsel for various American colonies before the Board of Trade and Privy Council. His brother Horatio was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. Two pages, folio. Grubby, frayed and worn, with some closed tears and minor fraying and loss to extremities, and minor loss to text. Appears to concern the investigation into a case brought against an English ship by the owners of the Spanish vessel Sancta Barbara ('Patron Joseph de la Torre').

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