VICTORIAN

The second of these ballads, 'Silver Threads Among the Gold', by the American Eben Eugene Rextord (1848-1916), was immensely popular on its release in 1873 with music by Hart Peas Danks (1834-1903). The earliest reference to the first ballad, 'Could you lend my mother a saucepan?' is in an 1885 number of 'All the Year Round'. The song is an absolute hoot, but its text is not to be found anywhere on the internet.

Hodgson’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography omits to mention the fact that the territory named Eton Vale which he squatted with his brother Christopher Pemberton Hodgson (1821-1865), was taken by force from the Barunggam people, and that, as the brother recalled in 1848, ‘so many hundreds of these poor creatures’ were ‘sacrificed’ in the struggle over the territory. From the papers of Evan Marlett Boddy (c.1847-1934), who is presumably the recipient ‘Marcian’, author of the named ‘brochure’, published in Birmingham in 1901. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, folded once.

The correspondence concerns the need to prevent a 'collision between the American and British authorities on the island' (the American General Harney is quoted as saying that 'he is satisfied that any attempt of the British Commander to ignore this right of the territory will be followed by deplorable results out of his power to control'). [2] + 4 + [1]pp, foolscap 8vo. Stabbed as issued. On discoloured and worn paper, with slight chipping at head of first leaf. Last page (back cover) printed crosswise in the customary fashion (for folding into a packet).

Certainly a very scarce item. JISC only lists one physical copy, at the British Library. 12pp, foolscap 8vo. Stabbed as issued. In fair condition, on worn, discoloured paper. A ‘Schedule’ at the start lists four numbers ‘in Series’: ‘Governor Douglas to the Duke of Newcastle’, 11 April 1853, ‘With copy of Proclamation declaring the Rights of the Crown with respect to Gold found at Queen Charlotte’s Island.

Bailey’s entry in the Oxford DNB describes the ‘remarkable popularity’ of the second edition of Festus in America: ‘seventeen ‘editions’ of a version pirated in Boston were called for in the first nine years, and it was also reprinted numerous times in Philadelphia, Louisville, and New York. Bailey became something of a 'lion' for visiting Americans of the transcendental stamp’, with Hawthorne visiting in the 1850s. 1p, 8vo. On brittle woodpulp paper, now discoloured with chipping to edges (resulting in loss to the word ‘Festus’ at the head) and with closed tears to the two folds.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. Eighteen lines of typed text, under the heading ‘VISION AND SERVICE.’ Undated, but certainly written after 1918, since the document is responding to changes since ‘the pre-war world of yesterday’. The final reference to a ladder, echoes a passage in Leverhulme’s 1919 tract ‘The Six-hour Day and other Industrial Questions’. Large bold signature at bottom right: ‘Leverhulme’. The signature and its environs are in good condition, on a document of aged and worn paper, with tearing to a central horizontal fold repaired with archival tape.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Autograph Signature and valediction to letter on 11 x 4.5 cm slip of paper: 'My dear Sir / Yours most truly / David Welsh'. In good condition on lightly-aged laid paper, with neat vertical fold. Tiny slip of paper with pencil note in contemporary hand laid down on blank space at left of slip.

Two pages,12mo, bifolium, good condition. Embossed heading Perseverantia et Fortitudo. My dear Kenney | In acknowledgment of Mrs Kenney's note Wednesday that between two and four [each] day except Saturdays & Mondays I am to be found here Wednesday I have most leisure & shall be happy to see you here tomorrow between 2 & 4 o'clock if convenient to you [...].

Four pages,16mo, bifolium, good condition. Dear Mr Ireland, | I will gladly be the means of transmitting your handsome volume [see Note b.] to the London Library. | I thank you for enabling me thus, even before my return, to glance over its pages. Such are my engagements here - that for the present I can do little more; but it has shown me for how much more I shall be indebted to you than I at first supposed.

See his entry, and that of his father the civil engineer, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On separate letterheads. The recipient is not named and there is no salutation (though the letter is complete). Signed ‘Brassey’. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Begins: ‘I have two maxims for [hourly?] use. / I do the little I can do and leave the rest to thee / What thou livest live well. The rest commit to Heaven / Nor should the last message of the greatest sailor since the world began ever be forgotten / England expects that every man this day will do his duty’.

A jaunty missive. Lady Eastlake and her husband have separate entries in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 16mo. Eighteen lines. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Addressed to 'Dear Mrs Ford' and signed 'Eliz Eastlake'. A 'kind friend in the country' is insisting on sending her 'early strawberries & grapes' and she asks Mrs Ford not to 'commit the extravagance of orderg any yourself, but trust to me to have the offering transferred to 123 Park Street'. She will be sending for the fruit at Euston Station around 2 o'clock on the Saturday, '& they shall be shortly after that with you'.

Lady Salisbury is referred to in her husband’s entry in the Oxford DNB as ‘a buoyant and forceful woman who could share his intellectual interests and encourage and facilitate his career’. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage. Written in a good firm hand. Addressed to ‘Dear Miss Faithfull’ and signed ‘G Salisbury’.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Twenty-three lines of text. In fair condition, lightly aged, but with slight creasing at head of leaf. Folded twice. Financial calculations written lengthwise underneath signature, with light smudging.

See his entry, and that of Taylor, in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. On bifolium. In fair condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Only the sculptors heavily inked signature ‘John Adams-Acton’ is in his hand, the rest more lightly written by an amanuensis. Addressed ‘To, Tom Taylor Esqr.’ Begins: ‘I address you as a representative of the press to solicit you to pay my studio a visit.’ He lists the names of five ‘public and distinguished men’ whose busts he can show, beginning with ‘The Right Honble W. E. Gladstone - Premier’ and including ‘Isaac Holden Esqr.

See the entry for Grey and Taylor in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. On first leaf of bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice. Begins: ‘Dear Mr Taylor - / I am just come home from seeing “the ticket of leave man,” & before I go to bed I must thank you for an evening of very great enjoyment.’ It pleased him ‘to see so good a play, not taken from the French, but really English, [the play was in fact adapted from the French] & teaching the public what is true instead of encouraging a popular delusion of the day’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. Twenty-six lines of text, in a close and disciplined hand. Signed 'Henry. E C. Archbp'. In fair condition, lightly aged, with small dap of light red ink at head of last page. Folded once. Begins: 'the Guardians of the Poor. Not a Catholic Child would they give up 24 years ago. Now all the 33 Boards give us our Children, & give us their maintenance out of the Rates. They Visit our Schools and are perfectly content: & we are on the fairest & friendliest terms.

See his entry, with those of his father and son (all three named Charles Wentworth Dilke) in the Oxford DNB. With regard to the present item the ODNB states: 'His deep involvement in the project [i.e. the 1851 Great Exhibition] is demonstrated by his massive bequest of exhibition material now held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.' 1p, 12mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with a crease to one corner. Folded twice for postage. Addressed to 'Henry Maudsley Esq' and signed 'C Wentworth Dilke'.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 4pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Fifty-eight lines of text. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded twice for postage. Begins: Dear M. Van de Weyer / Altho' I had been prudent enough to preserve the appeal of M. Derôme to the Times in its original form, not the less welcome was the glorified text which I found on my table yesterday on our return from a short visit to Brighton. That charming appeal acted as a mental Conserve alimentaire to me, when it first appeared, and it shall be placed with certain other valued opuscules, where I can offen turn it to the like account.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased, with one short closed tear to an edge. Folded twice for postage. The salutation (‘My dear old “Phil,” ’) and the signature ‘Landon Ronald’ are in autograph, the rest typed. The recipient is ‘Dr. W. J. Phillips, / “Kelvinside,” / Malcolm Road, / Wimbledon, S.W.’ He sends a ‘thousand thanks’ for Phillips’s ‘delightful telegram’. ‘It was indeed good of you to think of us all down here. It was a great night, and one I shall never forget.

See the two men's entries, with that of Helena Faucit, in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage. Addressed to 'Shirley Brooks Esq' and signed 'Theodore Martin'. Brooks has evidently asked for autographs and photographs of Martin and his wife, the celebrated actres Helena Faucit (1817-1898). The letter begins: 'My dear Brooks / Here are the autographs you wish. There is not in all The Lady of Lyons one line to which any reasonable being could wish to attach his name. It is only the situations which are good for anything.

See his entry, and those of his father and Cooke, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 16mo. In fair condition, lightly aged, with dab or red wax to one corner, and part of another corner torn away, presumably in breaking open the seal. Folded diagonally for postage. Addressed to 'My dear Mr Cooke' (the recipient's identity is beyond doubt) and signed 'Richd Westmacott'.

Coleridge was the nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. See his entry, and that of Cranworth, in the Oxford DNB. The letter relates to Palmerston’s first ministry. 1p, 16mo (cut down to a 12 x 10 cm piece of wove paper). In fair condition, lightly aged and discoloured, with traces of glue from mount adhering to one edge of blank reverse. Signing himself ‘J. T C’, Coleridge writes: ‘My dear Awdry / I have been with the Chancellor in consequence of the above - & promised to send him a minute in writing - where we have had trouble. Can you help me with your recollection. / In haste.

See his long and appreciative entry in the Oxford DNB, concluding with the praise of his ‘pioneering achievements, especially in the fields of Vedic studies and comparative philology'. 1p, 12mo. In good condition, lighty aged. Folded for postage. In autograph are the salutation (‘Dear Mr. Conway’) and valediction and postscript (‘Yours very truly / F. Max Müller / (in bed with a cold)’. The printed body of the letter reads: ‘Being quite unable to answer the numerous letters addressed to me, I had to choose this way of thanking my friends for their kind congratulations.

See his entry, and that of his father, in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged, with neatly-trimmed remnants of a windowpane mount adhering to the edges of the leaf. Folded twice for postage. Addressed to ‘My dear Madam’ and signed ‘R. W:’, followed by odd flourish.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Signed ‘J Fletcher Moulton’. Begins: ‘Dear Mrs Earle / Just at the worst moment of the fight your inspiring letter came to cheer me.’ He hopes he will be deserving of the ‘kind things’ she writes: ‘I could truthfully say things at least as kind in return but I fear my epistolary style does not lend itself thereto so I shall trust that you will take these as said.’ He ends by saying that he will retain the letter ‘as one of those which has [sic] given me most pleasure in my life’.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 12mo, with last page written crosswise. On bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded once. Addressed to ‘Dear Sir Edwin’ and signed ‘F D Lugard’. He regrets to inform him that there is ‘no present vacancy in Northern Nigeria’, but that he has ‘written to the c.o. on behalf of Mr Trayler whom you recommend, & I hope he may obtain an appointment in another Colony if no vacancy occurs in N. Nigeria’.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 4to. In his expansive hand, with a good bold signature. On worn and aged leaf of laid paper, with two small punch holes to inner edge, affecting one word of text. Reads: ‘Dear Sirs / I feel quite at a loss to express my sense of this mark of your attention. I can only assure you that my best exertions shall not be wanting to promote your views & interests. / Meantime / I am Dear Sirs / Yours faithfully / John Graham Dalyell’.

An characteristic letter by the author of 'Our Village', written in the year of her move from Three Mile Cross, Berkshire, to nearby Swallowfield, itself eight miles from Pearson's home in Sonning. See the entries on Mitford and Pearson in the Oxford DNB. 1p, 16mo. On the recto of the first leaf of a bifolium which has been unfolded with the fore-edge of the second leaf attached to a nineteenth-century stub. In good condition, lightly aged.

See 2pp, 16mo. On first leaf of a bifolium, with the reverse of second leaf addressed ‘To the / Lady Georgiana Ellis / Spring Garden [sic]’, and with torn corner of second leaf beneath red wax seal. Folded twice for postage. In fair condition, on aged and worn paper. ‘I have a thousand apologies to make for not having already said that my sister & I should have much pleasure in dining with you on the 19th. The truth is, that she thought I had done it & I thought she had - We are ashamed of ourselves’. The second part of the letter is difficult to decipher.

See his entry, and that of Bishop King, in the Oxford DNB. For the context of the present item - a chapel ‘built by an ingenious use of a portion of the Old Palace ruins’ - see Randolph and Townroe, ‘The Mind and Work of Bishop King’ (1918), chapter 6: ‘The entire furnishing and decoration of the chapel was undertaken by members of the English Church Union, in response to an appeal made by the President of the Society. The consecration took place in 1888.’ (The Bishop’s letter of thanks to Lord Halifax is quoted.) 2pp, 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. Folded twice.