ALS. 1p.  Fox How. August 22nd 1865.  To "Dear Mr Hill".

 

"I hasten to answer your letter. I have found a great treasure for you - ten letters to yourself - which I find put away most carefully.  Whether they came into my possession later than what I returned to you I cannot say, or how it may have been, but here they are and I rejoice to return them to you. Let me only beg of you to let me hear that you have received them safely.  I have not the time to add more but I thank you for your letter. I am ever y[ou]r Affec[tionate]. f[rien]d, M. Arnold." He adds a post-script "My dear Fran, who with her younger eyes has made this search for me, sends her kind love."

 

8vo. 18 x11.5 cms (7 x 4.5 inches). Blank bifolium leaf excised, else fine.

 

A letter written by Matthew Arnold from the family's home in the Lake District where, in earlier years the Arnold's had spent holidays as close neighbours of William Wordsworth. "Fran" is presumably Arnold's wife, Frances Lucy, who he had married in1851. "Mr Hill" is probably Herbert Hill, a nephew of Robert Southey's, who Thomas Arnold had engaged as the young Matthew's tutor and mentor and who continued a friendship and correspondence with his protégé for some years. At around the time of this letter, Matthew Arnold was still working on the collection of verses which were to be published in 1867, including his great masterpiece 'Dover Beach'.

 Provenance: From the 19th century album compiled by the family of Dr James Copland F.R.S. (1791-1870), the noted Scottish physician and writer on medicine.