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Thomas Edwards
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Samuel Richardson : Clarissa
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 26 January 1749:] 'I find, dear Sir, that if I put off my acknowledgements to the author of the divine Clarissa till I can meet with words that will fully express what I think and feel on that subject, I must for ever seem either insensible or ungrateful [...] Whether it be a milkiness of blood in me, as Shakespeare calls it, I know not, but I have never felt so much distress in my life as I have done for that dear girl [comments further]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Edmund Spenser : ?The Works of Mr Edmund Spenser
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 30 March 1751:] 'I never was master of any edition of Spenser but Rowe's, which, upon my first reading it, appeared to be published in a very hasty and careless manner: a very great number of faults I could discover and correct, without comparing with any other edition. Some time since I borrowed the folio of 1609; but it was not till lately that I could get a sight of the first quarto of 1590, which was published in Spenser's lifetime: and I proposed this summer, if I should have life and health, to collate the three together, -- as indeed I have begun to do [discusses this editorial project and related issues further]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Edmund Spenser : The Faerie Queene
Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 30 March 1751: 'I never was master of any edition of Spenser but Rowe's, which, upon my first reading it, appeared to be published in a very hasty and careless manner: a very great number of faults I could discover and correct, without comparing with any other edition. Some time since I borrowed the folio of 1609; but it was not till lately that I could get a sight of the first quarto of 1590, which was published in Spenser's lifetime: and I proposed this summer, if I should have life and health, to collate the three together, -- as indeed I have begun to do [discusses this editorial project and related issues further]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Edmund Spenser : The Faerie Queene
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 30 March 1751:] 'I never was master of any edition of Spenser but Rowe's, which, upon my first reading it, appeared to be published in a very hasty and careless manner: a very great number of faults I could discover and correct, without comparing with any other edition. Some time since I borrowed the folio of 1609; but it was not till lately that I could get a sight of the first quarto of 1590, which was published in Spenser's lifetime: and I proposed this summer, if I should have life and health, to collate the three together, -- as indeed I have begun to do [discusses this editorial project and related issues further]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Edmund Spenser :
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 8 May 1751:] 'All this while I have been hard at work upon [an edition of] Spenser; but to what purpose except my own private satisfaction? There, however, it will repay me: for every time I read I find new beauties in him; such fine moral sentiments, such height of colouring in his descriptions, such a tenderness when he touches any of the humane passions! -- Were but his language better understood, he must be admired by every one who has a a [italics]heart[end italics].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
: Proposal for 'Universal Dictionary of Commerce'
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 8 May 1751:] 'I had just been reading a paper which I met with at Aylesbury: it was a most puffy preface to proposals published by John and Paul, -- of what date I know not, for that was torn off. The name of the book was the Universal Dictionary of Commerce [comments further on proposal, mocking especially the author's wish "That our young British nobility and gentry [...] would condescend for a year or two to be initiated into the business of a merrchant in a well-regulated and methodical counting-house"] [...] A blessed scheme this! To fill our merchants' houses with a parcel of young, lawless, privileged rakes, to debauch their wives and daughters!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Unknown
Hester Mulso : 'Odes'
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 28 February 1752:] 'I often entertain myself with reading over those charming Odes of Miss Mulso's, and admire them more and more every time I read them. I am so proud of the honour she has done me in one of them, that my gratitude has forced from me another sonnet [...] which I desire you to give her.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards
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[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 18 March 1752, following his account of recent storm damage to rooks' nests in his garden:] 'This impertinent episode of the rookery interrupted the account I was giving of my employment, which I was going to tell you is chiefly reading the choicest authors my little library affords; which, as they are few, I go over and over again; and indeed I almost read my eyes out.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Alexander Pope : 'Essays'
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 20 March 1752:] 'As to Mr Pope, though I had some acquaintance with him, and admired him as a poet, yet I must own I never had any great opinion of him in any other light [...] With all his affectation of humanity and a general benevolence, he was certainly a very ill-natured man; and can such a one easily be a good man? 'But were I ever so indisposed, what can I vindicate? Not the morality of his essays, for I think it very faulty. Mr Warburton has, indeed, tinkered it in some places to make it look orthodox, but yet it will not hold water [comments further on Warburton's edition of Pope]'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Hester Mulso : sonnet
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 5 March 1753:] 'I am much obliged to you for the sonnet; it is very pretty'.
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards
Samuel Richardson : Sir Charles Grandison
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 28 January 1754, on his return home from a stay in London:] 'I have not been a fort'n-night [sic] at home. The contrast between my late situation, happy in the enjoyment of the company of my friends, and my present solitary circumstances, was too strong for me not to want something to compensate the difference. I therefore called Sir Charles Grandison to my assistance; for the conversation I had with him at Ember and in town was so broken and interrupted that it had by no means satisfied my longing. And what was the consequence? Why, just the fable of the horse and the man: he whom I called in for an ally became my master, and made me spend with him every leisure hour I could command, till I had again gone through the five books; and had they been fifteen, I must have done so.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Anna Williams : verses addressed to Samuel Richardson
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 1 March 1754:] 'Who is that Miss Nanny Williams who has published a pretty copy of verses addressed to you in the Gentleman's Magazine of January last? Whoever she be, the girl has a good heart; and writes very well [...] If you know her, I desire my service and thanks to her.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Serial / periodical
John Duncombe : The Feminiad
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 29 May 1754:] 'I very much wonder, how it came to pass that I did not hear a syllable of Mr Duncombe's performance, till Miss Sally happened to rummage it out among other things for my entertainment that evening which I spent without you at North-End. I have since got it. I hope I am not bribed by the compliment to me, but I think it a very pretty poem. I indeed very much dislike the title [...] there can be no such word as Feminiad with an [italics]i[end italics] after the [italics]n[end italics] formed from femina; the Battiad, the Causidicad, and other foolish things which have come out with that termination in imitation of the Dunciad, have given people a surfeit of, and even an aversion to, "omne quod exit in ad." But what say the ladies to it? I wish it might be a means to persuade them to publish, though without names. If they would join to give us a miscellany, it would be a better collection than most we have had, and do honour both to themselves and the sex.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Unknown
: [Poetry by women]
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 18 July 1754:] 'I did say, and I really do think, that it is a pity so many fine performances, as you and I have seen written by ladies, should be lost to the world; that the public should be robbed of the pleasure and instruction, and they themselves of the honour of them [...] The prejudices against a learned wife (such I mean as are free from pedantry, and neglect not their proper duty to acuire their learning) are absurd, irrational, and often flow from envy, but they are strong, inveterate, and too general. Who then is she who dares step forth to vindicate her sex, and assert their claim to genius, at the hazard of forfeiting all her own hopes of a settlement in the world, and friendship with the rest of her sex? [reflects further on women's education and intellectual endeavour]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: UnknownManuscript: Unknown
Miss Farrer : 'Ode on the Spring'
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 18 July 1754:] 'I return you many thanks for Miss Farrer's Ode on the Spring; it is a charming piece, and must do her honour with all judges.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Manuscript: Unknown
Miss Highmore : sonnet
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 18 July 1754:] 'The verses from my fair [italics]Pupil[end italics], as she does me the honour to call herself, did indeed a little alarm me. To chide me in a sonnet for writing of sonnets, was doing as a physician did by me the other day, -- who at the very time he was taking a pinch out of my box reproved me for taking snuff.'
UnknownCentury: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards
Edmund Spenser : Sonnets
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 18 July 1754, on his practice of writing sonnets:] 'The reading of Spenser's Sonnets was the first occasion of my writing that species of little poems, and my first six were written in the same sort of stanza as all his and Shakespeare's are. But after that Mr Wray brought me acquainted with the Italian authors, who are the originals of that sort of poetry, and whose measures have more variety and harmony in them, -- ever since, I wrote in that stanza; drawing from the same fountain as Milton drew from'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Miss Farrer : 'Ode to Cynthia'
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 1 August 1754:] 'I give you many thanks for that sweet little Ode of Miss Farrer's. I think myself honoured by the trust, and promise that the conditions [of his being given permission to read it] shall be religiously observed.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Manuscript: Unknown
Samuel Richardson : Pamela
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 19 December 1754:] 'Think not that I can be easily satisfied without your company: I have it in those excellent works which do honour to the present age, and are a great alleviation of my solitude [...] Pamela I have lately read, and begun upon Clarissa, and I must still say, the more I read the more I admire.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Samuel Richardson : Clarissa
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 19 December 1754:] 'Think not that I can be easily satisfied without your company: I have it in those excellent works which do honour to the present age, and are a great alleviation of my solitude [...] Pamela I have lately read, and begun upon Clarissa, and I must still say, the more I read the more I admire.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke : Essays
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 15 January 1755:] 'You have a very just opinion of St. John's works [...] As far as I have seen, and I read at Ember the last volume, which contains his essays, there is nothing in his objections but what has been published and answered over and over [...] I know not whether his system may be more properly called deistical, or atheistical; since, though in words he allows a God, he seems to make him such a one as Epicurus did; and to think that we are beneath his notice, or have very little to do with him. He laughs at all notions of revelation, or a particular providence, and reckons the present life the whole of man's existence. These essays, by the way, afford us abundant and irrefragable proof, that the plan of the Essay on Man was St. John's, and not Pope's [...] You have here the whole scheme, the thoughts and in many places the very words of the poem; and a more consistent scheme it is here, than it appears there, after the poet and the parson had laid their heads together to disguise and make it pass for a christian system [comments further].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Alexander Pope : Essay on Man
Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 15 January 1755: 'You have a very just opinion of St. John's works [...] As far as I have seen, and I read at Ember the last volume, which contains his essays, there is nothing in his objections but what has been published and answered over and over [...] I know not whether his system may be more properly called deistical, or atheistical; since, though in words he allows a God, he seems to make him such a one as Epicurus did; and to think that we are beneath his notice, or have very little to do with him. He laughs at all notions of revelation, or a particular providence, and reckons the present life the whole of man's existence. These essays, by the way, afford us abundant and irrefragable proof, that the plan of the Essay on Man was St. John's, and not Pope's [...] You have here the whole scheme, the thoughts and in many places the very words of the poem; and a more consistent scheme it is here, than it appears there, after the poet and the parson had laid their heads together to disguise and make it pass for a christian system [comments further].'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Samuel Richardson : Clarissa
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 15 January 1755:] 'Your works are an inexhaustible fund of entertainment and instruction. I have been this day weeping over the seventh volume of Clarissa, as if I had attended her dying bed, and assisted at her funeral procession. O may my latter end be like hers!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Edwards Print: Book
Henry Fielding : Voyage to Lisbon
[Thomas Edwards to Samuel Richardson, 28 May 1755:] 'I have lately read over with much indignation Fielding's last piece, called his Voyage to Lisbon. That a man, who had led such a life as he had, should trifle in that manner when immediate death was before his eyes, is amazing. From this book I am confirmed in what his other works had fully persuaded me of, that with all his parade of pretences to virtuous and humane affections, the fellow had no heart.'
