Letters,
References and Notes (1845)
Relating to
Anne Marsh (Marsh Caldwell)
The following is a listing of letters, references and general notes, from 1845, relating to Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) and her family, in particular her husband Arthur Cuthbert Marsh and their son Martin Marsh. For notes relating to other years please go to Letters, References and Notes (1780-1874).
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. Probably 20 March 1845. Dated in pencil March 20, 1846, filed before 2 May 1846, but may have actually been written before 1 January 1846. The letter reads:
20 March 1846
My dear Martin,
I must first talk to you about this dear beloved dog of yours.
I intended myself to have broken tenderly to you, the matter of the
new law of banishment, but I find your sisters have forestalled
me. It went hard with both Louisa and myself to pass the decree
against your dog, but the matter has really become so great a
nuisance, and we feel it must make our house not too neat and
comfortable as it is, such a dirty and disgusting place to those who
did not love the dogs, that one morning having been quite disgusted
myself with our dirty chairs and beastly carpets, I resolved upon the
decisive measure. I am sure my love you will not think it is
from any want of love to you that we determine upon it but from a
conviction that it was for the public good. You will still have
your dog in your own apartments, and we shall all summer time have
him living among us. I can only add I feel his loss very much
myself, but I do not in the least waver in my decree poor dear
fellow. So I hope my Martin will be reasonable even in this tender
point and knowing how we both love his happiness and to indulge every
wish it possible that he can form, he will not take this unkind where
anything but unkindness is meant "somewhat too much of
this" as Hamlet says. Now for your dear letter. I
was quite easy about your knee after your letter to me, but the one
Adelaide received this morning disquiets me a little. It seems
as if you were not quite out of the wood yet. I hope you will
take care to have very particular directions as to how you are to
manage it, at home, or you will perhaps have still a good deal of
trouble with it. I suspect your walk to Whitmore's rooms was
somewhat premature, but what can a man do with a smoking home.
Your father will send you £10 from London on Wednesday.
Are you sure that will be enough? If not Pray do not run
yourself uncomfortably close, have a few pounds more. As for
your rides we will talk of that. I should be sorry indeed that
you should give them up. I do not think you could work without
them. I do not look upon them as either pleasure or luxury, but
as sustenance. They are not very expensive, and we can perhaps
diminish the number say three a fortnight when you are very well and
don't feel to want them. However this subject may be put off
till next term, your aconomy [economy] and prudence is a proof of the
tenderness and generosity of your spirit so much consideration and
self denial. How lovely a virtue is it in one so young.
Your dear Grandfather [William Marsh] speaks with the tears
coming into his eyes of that precious boy on who so much depends on
whom all our hopes are resting and then he says, I sometimes shudder
to think that so much is upon one cast, and he hopes you will never
ride out again it will not be in company. Young men galloping
together. At which mother as I am I smile and think, much he
would enjoy riding like my little Master quietly by himself. No
my love I trust you to the good providence who has preserved you
through many years, and thank him gratefully for this last
escape. I do not know what to say about friendships. I
have always been accustomed to think the dearest and most perfect of
human relations is that between husband and wife, when they are both
sufficiently refined to be capable of friendships in love. Many
love without an idea of the true dignity of that passion, in its most
exulted sense, of devotion in women and tender protection in men, in
a union of duties affections interests all rendered interesting by
the contrasts of their relative positions. There is something
to the sweeter tenderness nobler, than even in the strongest
friendships between friends. All my hope is that you who are so
capable of these higher and more exulted feelings will when you come
to choose, select a woman capable and worthy to share them, but at
present it is far better that your heart should be for friendships
and the half paternal affection you feel for your young friend
perhaps interests your feelings more than one more founded upon
equality would. I trust he will prove worthy of it. Pray
tell me who the lady is who liked The Previsions of Lady Evelyn
. I am very much pleased that any one who knows nothing of the
Author should speak so well of them for alas! poor Author she must
labour on if we are to live on here so it is fair she should be
comforted and encouraged with a little praise. I shall never
more be weary upon the subject of your taking your morals from Lord
Chesterfield after what you say. So that is laid to rest
and you may profit by his excellent advice as a man of the world, a
part he understood perfectly and practised to perfection. What
was said in the papers of the disturbance in Christ Ch. was that some
of the students had been detected in gaming, and that 4 were
suspended and 3 expelled. That the next day they took all their
furniture and burnt it in the court, and painted caricatures upon the
doors of the authorities, a great bear upon one. I think that
was all. I dare say the Times added enough upon the wickedness
and insubordination of the . . . of Oxford, however I dare say this
scandalous story is not half true. It behaves young men of
condition now a days, to show themselves worthy of their condition
for there are those below them who will not be imposed upon by
outsides. I think we can begin our reading regularly at ½
past ten, which will suit us both well, and I hope we shall get a
great deal of useful reading done. You are quite right in your
astonishment at Shakespeare's Divi Nation. It seems the gift of
genius not only to create but to divine. Perhaps this faculty
is in no case more wonderful than in Coriolanus, but you will be
still more pleased with Julius Caesar. That is a marvellous
play. Perhaps Antony and Cleopatra, read straight though so as
to follow the play of the characters is the most wonderful of the
three. What you say of desultory reading being in some danger
of weakening the impressions we receive by their variety is
true. There is that danger. Where it is possible
the way you have adopted with regard to Shakespeare of making your
lighter reading bear upon the more serious study you have in hand is
excellent to obviate that danger, whenever it can be so
continued. King Lear is a horrid book, but there is a good deal
of ability in it, and it is in a style and way of . . . so much out
of the common course of your reading that I thought it might be
useful. My own journal will be but an empty one. Our time
last week having been chiefly employed in regulating our domestic
affairs and training our new servants to their business. It was
such a sweep. When Hatcher[?] is gone there will not one remain
that was with us at Christmas. I fear we have been the prey of
a bad set. We have a very promising Coachman coming, an elderly
man, and are fitted up all but Cook and Laundry Maid. We have
been walking over the farm a good deal. Borroughs[?] Hill is
ploughed and they are now ploughing in the Lucerne field. We
have a new calf and that is all the news except that the pheasantry
is degraded into a goose horse, "Oime" as you say. Oh
I forgot but I dare say your sisters have already told you that the
honourable Mrs Holland has a
daughter. Does it not give you a sort of an uncle feel I think
I am almost a Grand Mama. Your dear dog is very well, and I gave him
twenty . . . yesterday though he was trespassing in the front
hall. Pretty fellow he looked so conscious and so good, I could
not turn him out, so he staid there a little but never attempted to
come into the drawing room. Farewell now my dearest boy, ever
your tenderly affectionate Mother.
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. Dated in pencil 12 May 1845. The letter reads as follows:
12 May 1845
My dearest Martin,
I could not answer your questions about the Baconian Words,
because I found I must read the context to understand them and I have
accordingly read the first two books of "the Advancement"
nearly through, but I cannot find the passages to which you refer and
without the context it seems impossible to arrive at their
"second intention" - or precise meaning in Book 2nd I
find after a Latin quotation "Fire is the cause of
induration but respective to clay: Fire is the cause of
induration but respective to wax. But fire is no constant cause
of induration or colliquation . So then the physical causes are
but the efficient and the Matter. This does not seem the
passage that you allude to for your quotation is "Physics heats
of the efficient and the Matter." However the word
efficient has the same sense in both sentences and your father says
it means the prosimate[?] effective cause which acts upon
Matter. I say prosimate[?] to distinguish it from final causes,
which are metaphysical. Thus the efficient cause of an apple
falling is the action of gravitation upon the Matter of the
apple. Its final cause is the intention or design of the law
given that fruit should fall to the earth in order to sow itself
again and produce next fruit. Thus physcies that of the action
of efficient causes upon Matter, of the efficient and the Matter. I
believe this is his meaning. For the other words, determinate means
in its first intention, settled, fixed decided upon. Absolute,
without modification. Specificate. To Specificate is to
distinguish one object from another by marking its specific
properties in detail. If I knew the sentences in which the
words were used I could give you their more precise meaning. I
do not know whether Bacon translated his advancement himself (which I
think was originally written in Latin) or whether others have done it
for him, but it strikes me that the copy we have of it here is more
difficult of comprehension than the one I read some years ago,
because words are used often not in their ordinary sense; than which
nothing is more puzzling. Thus he uses form where I think one
should use Law in a part of the book which I found very
difficult. Do you ever make extracts into a common place book
of any passages that particularly strike you. I see Lord Bacon
recommends it Dr Holland
used to practice it very much when he was a young man and had a very
well arranged common place book, the heads of which your poor Aunt
Emma [Holland]sent to me. I will endeavour to find it for
you. I do not wonder that Lord Bacon tries your brains.
And still less do I wonder that you feel the progress you make while
engaged in such a book. "As we cannot discern the finger
moving on the dial plate, so the advances we make in knowledge are
only to be observed by the distance gone over," says a wise man
whose name I cannot remember, but it does not seem altogether and at
all times true. There are particular books that make the finger
move so fast that one can discern it. I very much approve of
your plan of reading twice over. It will . . . you more than
two readings upon a different plan. What are you reading of
Butler? His analogy? I was pleased with your little note
dedicated alone to Mount Sorel . I shall treasure that among my
archives. It was a very sweet pleasure to me to have pleased
you, and it gratified me much that my picture of a young man apparent
itself to a young man just of the same age. In short of all my
successes this is the dearest to me by far. I really now must pass
from your letter to my own adventures. Last Tuesday we went to
pay a visit to Brook Street for a few days. The first day
we had Captain Owen Stanley the Bishop of Norwich's eldest son
to dinner. He is a man you would like, so spirited and lively
and yet so thoroughly well informed quite a scientific officer (has
scientific a k or no, I don't know how to spell . . . Author as I
am). I wonder and shall never cease to wonder when men observe
the grace and interest intellectual culture gives to every man, to
say nothing of its intrinsic value, that young men can be so base so
contemptible so un . . . of all that is valuable as to waste their
youth in smoking idling and lounging or worse. In the evening
we went to a ball at Patrey Park where I as usual there enjoyed my
evening surrounded by old friends who queer as they may look to the
rest of the world are very agreeable and interesting to me.
Posy and Fanny were staying with me. Georgy I took with
me. Louisa we left in Brook Street. On Wednesday we went
and saw the Exhibition which I thought a disagreeable one to British
Art. There were so few pictures of any merit at all and of
those few the merit was but small, except one of Landseers the
Shepherd and his Sheep. A shepherd kneeling before a crucifix
and all his flock as one sees them on a fine summer evening, bleeting
clustering reposing round him. In the evening Louisa and I went
to drink tea with Mr.Wheeler. Thursday we went out to make
calls and at a Mr.Lopez a Spanish Merchant we saw some of the most
beautiful pictures by Spanish Artists that I ever I think
beheld. Several fine Masillos[?], Velesquez , Zarbous etc and
in the evening we had a good family meeting at Miss Morrisons -
the Farnes, Morrison's, Lady Donnmon, Mary Pigott, Papa and Aunt
Georgy, Lousisa, Georgy, Adelaide and myself. Our pretty
Adelaide did indeed look elegant and pretty. A more elegant and
pleasing a girl I would not wish to see. Miss Morrison was
extremely kind to us all. The next day I was too tired to go out
sight seeing, but in the evening we went out to the French play we
had "Les Fausses Confidences" by Marsivand[?] a play I
never advise anybody trouble themselves to see and "Les
Forteires de Scorpion"[?] of Molière in the effort
of which I was disappointed. Saturday we came home. I am
writing on Tuesday instead of Monday as I thought you would be at
Eton today. Mrs Holland
and her two little girls are come to pay us a two day visit. I
very much applaud you for spending your Whitsuntide holidays at Eton
and I am glad you are going with Airslie. His name puts me in
mind of the debate on Fate and Chance. Your way of resolving it
by, it has happened, has more wisdom in it than perhaps you are
aware. In matters such as this where it is impossible that we
should ever arrive at the truth of the form as Lord Brown would say,
it is better simply to announce the fact, and not to attempt to
divide upon the Law. Better remain in doubt says Bacon where
one cannot arrive at a fast certainty, lest one should decide falsely
and embrace an error. I have no time for the farm? I have
not yet succeeded in getting you a fox but here not doubt if I fail
this spring that I shall get you one next. I am not yet
consoled for the loss of this. Things are looking well at the
farm and I am very sanguine. I must end now every my dearest
Martin tender Mother.
Letter from Arthur Marsh to his son Martin Marsh. The letter reads as follows:
31 May 1845
My dear Martin
I enclose the other halves of the £5 notes. Give me notice
enough of your motions that's all in order that I may have time to
arrange about horses etc. Your Mother and Sisters are in very .
. . . . . of Thursday night at a Ball here and today at Madame
O . . . [Owing's?] Matinee Musical.
Ever most affectionately yours
ACM
The first of two letters from Anne Marsh-Caldwell to her publisher Chapman & Hall regarding their publishing agreement (written in 3rd person). The letter, or part letter, reads as follows:
Eastborough
June 17th 1845
Mrs Marsh presents her compliments to Messers Chapman &
Hall. It was her expectation that the portion of the historical
attempt submitted might have been sufficient to have given such
an idea of the scope & exception of the work as to enable a
publisher to judge whether it was likely to answer any purpose of his
- as this does does not seem to have been the case she feels scarcely
inclined, at present to give the time & attention necessary to
bring the remainder to that state of correction in which she would
desire to see it upon such a slender chance of its ever been thrown
into circulation. She will be in town on Thursday next &
will send a servant for the M.S. as well as for the copy of Mount
Sorel . With respect to the copy right of this last - she takes
leave to say that she expressly stated at the very outset of the
negotiation that it was not her intention to part with her copy
rights - as Mr Chapman on referring to her letter will find - it
being well understood that she was not to interfere with Messers
Chapman & Hall's expectations from their enterprise. The
arrangements others are pleased to enter into with Messers C & H
do not appear to her to be relevant. She would like to have an
opportunity of taking the advice of some one experienced in these
matters. Her wish is to do everything that is reasonable &
honourable but of course not to throw away that which is fairly her
own - there seems no occasion for haste - a little time will show of
what value Mount Sorel is to the publisher - and enable them to
ascertain what arrangements, upon the terms perfectly well understood
between the partners, it will be equitable to make.
The second of two letters from Anne Marsh-Caldwell to her publisher Chapman & Hall regarding their publishing agreement (written in 3rd person). The letter reads as follows:
Eastborough Lodge
June 28th [1845]
Mrs Marsh regrets that she has been so much engaged lately as not to
have had it in her power earlier to reply to Mr Chapman's last
communication on which she wishes to say a few words. When she
used the words "very outset of the negotiation" - she of
course did not mean to express by these that the communication on the
subject of the copy right was made in the very first notes that
passed upon the occasion, but merely to say that it was made before
the business fast proceeded beyond the preliminaries & while it
was perfectly in the power of Messers Chapman & Hall to put an
end to it, & retract their proposals if they did not agree to the
condition. As no notice was taken of it on their part, of
course Mrs Marsh concluded that it was acceded to, & she thinks
it a pity that they were not more explicit upon the subject at the
time. If Mr Chapman will once more refer to the letter Mrs
Marsh thinks that he will find that in the sentence following the
condition of the copy right - is one containing the assurance of Mrs
Marsh's understanding that she is not in any manner to interfere with
the realisation of the profits Messers C&H might expect to reap
from their enterprise and she thinks this expression is in itself
sufficient to them, what was indeed her real meaning - namely that
she had no intention to part finally with any of her copy right - but
that she was to consider it as virtually belonging to Messers C &
H until they had realised their anticipations from their plan - and
in this light she still considers it & would esteem it
excessively dishonourable on her part in the slightest way to
interfere with them - but she must take leave to say that the term
concession as used on the part of Mr. Chapman does not appear to her
to be applicable exactly - she desires no concession - she merely
wishes to adhere to the terms of her bargains as she understood them
- & as she thinks they fairly should be understood - that she
should not part with her copy right - but that the expectations
formed by Messers Chapman & Hall from their enterprise should not
be interfered with. Any abandonment of the copy right she should
consider a concession on her part - still, if it be equitable, it is
a concession she will make, & will much rather, therefore,
relinquish altogether her copy right for ten years from the date of
publication Jan 1st 1845, than do anything to disappoint the
expectations of those who, with the exception of this slight
misunderstanding, have conducted everything on their side in the most
agreeable manner. With respect to the Henry the 4th it
certainly would have given Mrs Marsh pleasure to have given it to the
public through Messers Chapman & Hall - & in this expectation
she could have bestowed with satisfaction much additional labour, to
have perfected it, & brought it as near as possible to her own
conception of what should constitute a good history - but from the
tenor of Mr Chapman's note upon the subject she was lead to think he
had little idea - indeed, no desire to make use of it - and she
thought it better to give no further trouble about it. The part
already completed may be said in a certain sense to constitute a
whole - commencing with the first rise of the Reformation in France -
& concluding with the death of Charles the 9th it includes the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew and may be considered as the first act
of that great tragedy - the History of the Reformation in France -
this part is finished and has indeed been written twice over.
All it requires are such abbreviations as might be deemed desirable,
of its extent of matter a calculation though not a very accurate one
might be formed. It was intended to add to this part 2 others
to complete the story - the 1st to the establishment of the reforms
by Henry 4th the Edict of Nantes - & the last its final
destruction under . . . & Louis 14th . The title ought not
properly to have been a life of Henry 4th perhaps but the History of
the Reformation in France. If Messers Chapman & Hall should
feel inclined to make any further enquires upon the subject Mrs Marsh
will be happy to hear from Mr. Chapman.
Eastborough Lodge
June 29th 1845
Anne's book "Mount Sorel" was published in 1845 by Chapman & Hall. "Father Darcy" was also published by Chapman & Hall the following year, 1846. "The Protestant Reformation in France or The History of the Hugonots" was eventually published by Bentley in 1847. Most of Anne's later books were not published by Chapman & Hall but were mainly published by Bentley or Colburn. The above two letters were presumably kept by Chapman & Hall with reference to the ownership of copyright for Mount Sorel. Both letters eventually turned up for sale, in 2002, in a bookshop in America.
Letter from Arthur Marsh to his son Martin Marsh. The letter reads as follows:
16 July 1845
My dear Martin
Your expedient of directing your letter to York Gate was very
judicious and on Friday I ordered at Rivington's & Co, Waterloo
Place the following works
Hooke's Works 3 Volumes.
Shakespeare 1 Volume.
C . . . of Literature.
Lockhart's Life of Scott.
The first is meant for Garth. The two last were not bound so
that the parcel could not be dispatched immediately but I was assured
that the binding should be done and the whole sent to you by next
Saturday 22? If you do not like any of the works I have
arranged with Rivingtons to have them changed; and in that case you
have only to return those you do not like to Messers Rivington
Bookseller, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall & order something else, but
I should not wish the price of what you may select to exceed greatly
those I have ordered. The prices of which are respectively
£2.3.6, 17 shillings, 24 shillings, 24 shillings. No
letter from you this morning. We shall I trust finish Haymaking
tomorrow of which I am heartily . . . , we shall stack about 120
loads I think. Next year I hope to do better. Tomorrow
week I go into Gloucestershire, but hope to be at home again by the
following Monday 31, at latest, to meet you and arrange about your
going to Bergen.
Ever Dear Boy
Yours most affectionately
Arthur Marsh
I had nearly forgotten to tell you, that the Rector of Exeter, will
not allow you to remain on his list for admission, if you are to be
at liberty to enter at any other College on any other terms than the
obtaining of a Scholarship or Postmastership at such College. I
have therefore written to Mr Clutterbuck to say that I no longer
consider your name as placed on the Exeter list. This in
consequence of what you said on that subject to your Mother when you
were last here.
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. No date but probably late summer, filed after 12 May and before 3 September 1845. The letter reads as follows:
My dearest Martin,
How sorry I was to part with you, and how flat and dull the house
looked when you were gone. You should see your father caress
your dog. I know who he is thinking of then. I was very
glad of my little note and I shall be still more glad of my journal,
but I can only give you a few incoherent sentences today for I have
been correcting proofs all the morning and I am so tired there
is no more breath or strength left within me. We are dreadfully
hot and it will not rain, and we want rain very much. Georgy
went to the wedding and is so full of enjoyment that it exceeds my
most sanguine hopes of the happiness the world enjoys. It was a
very pretty wedding, and they had a gay dance in the evening, but I
dare say she will write you all about it herself. They seemed
to like Lord Gifford as much as I did which you know was very much
indeed. Scott is very desirous to renew old friendships with
you, and he and George are coming down here. We went yesterday
to look at a new piece of property which we find belongs to us, about
two roods of copse wood at the other side of Oxley. Is
not this in odd conformity to your ambitions. It was noted down
and rated to your father in the tax gatherer's survey, so I think
there will be no doubt it belongs to him, though it is a least half a
mile from out boundary. Adelaide will tell you all about
London, and I am so tired, I can write no more. So god bless my
dear dear boy, prays his tender loving mother.
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. Dated 3 September and in pencil 1845. The letter reads as follows:
Eastborough
Wednesday Sept 3rd 1845
My dearest Martin,
I was very glad to get your little letter, which met with a delay and
did not arrive till yesterday. We shall be extremely glad to
receive you and your friend on the 9th or 10th. Let me know
which, and I should certainly contrive a bed for him, however full
the house might be. It will be a strange impossibility which
will prevent my receiving any friend of yours. I am very glad
indeed that you have had so charming a visit and seen so much.
Your mind will be filled with beautiful pictures, as your book I hope
with solid remarks. I am most pleased that it begins to get
full and doubt not you will get very fond of it. We have been
leading very quiet lives here. We called upon the Alexanders,
who you perhaps know and perhaps don't have got the Milman's
house at Pinner [The Grove?]. They were out but returned the
call the other day. They are very nice people indeed. He
quite the right sort of person, gentle countenance, good manners, and
a thorough experienced man of the world. He has been in
Parliament which is after all the best school for forming the mind
and manners. He had a very pleasing daughter with him, one of a
sisterhood of 9, so your sisters begin to feel quite a small convent
full. I am going to have them to dinner next week and shall
make Friday to make sure of you. Your sisters come home by
Borghton[?], near Worcester and so they will not need your
escort. I called on Monday at Munden to ask them to meet
the Alexanders, but they are going to Dover. Parker came over
to call upon you, leaving his card so he too is to be considered as a
man, and left word at Munden that you were out or would have returned
it. Aunt . . . Aunt Georgy and the two boys are staying in
London so we are quite a little party, and enjoy the quiet of it very
much. We have been reading Sybil much to our amusement.
We have been quite among our Lancashire and Yorkshire factories.
I cannot judge of his representations of the people, but his
pictures of the scenery are very faithful. It is a clever book,
only that he draws most . . . inferences from his facts. The
Barley is all . . . , the wheat cutting. Our wheat is there
upon the ground but remarkably sound and fine in the ear. I
have sent Clarke to Barnet Fair to buy some black cattle for
you. Your sheep are coming on beautifully and Clarke values
them at 15 shillings a head and says he cannot think of letting them
go under 14 shillings so I hope our speculation will answer to all
parties. The potatoes here are in some degree affected with the
universal complaint. A most unaccountable decay in some of the
potatoes when others on the same root, are quite sound. Turnips
very fine. I have just been weighing one which without either
tops, or root, the bale nearly weighs 9lbs 2oz. Now I must go
to my work for I am very busy just now. I am ever my dearest
Martin tender Mother.
Our best compliments to those around you. Adelaide has just got a new
. . . for Spate[?] which I hope will do him good. His best duty
to you.
Letter from Emma Louisa Marsh to her brother Martin Marsh. Dated in pencil 4 September 1845. The letter reads as follows:
Dearest Martin,
Mama desires me to say that you will receive a Post Office order for
£5 on Saturday and so if you want any money before that time you
can borrow some from John upon it. She would have sent it today
but cannot get the order till tomorrow and does not think it safe to
send the money in a letter. The order will be made out to
Bingley. I am delighted dear Martin that you have enjoyed your
visit so much and seeing such a host of interesting places must have
been so very entertaining. This morning we are expecting 7
Huttons to spend a long day, which in my opinion is a dreadful trial
to both guests and hosts patience don't you know after she has
exhausted all topics the gasping that takes place for something more
to be found to say. Next Friday there is to be a dinner party
here (I mean the Friday in next week) to meet Mr and Mrs Alexander,
the Milman's tenants who are very nice
people. He is someway connected with the Dashwoods[?] and Grand
Papa knew something of their family before. The farm goes on more
flourishingly than it ever did before it is thought and there are six
dearest little welsh oxen feeding in the great meadow which I believe
are yours. Forty of your lambs set off to Barnet fair yesterday
evening but the results are not yet known and Clarke now says it
would be sorry to let any of their (the lambs) mothers go under 12
shillings. The potato crop has failed dreadfully about here as
in other parts of the country and they fear their will be much
distress this winter among the poor. The potatoes which have
the disease have the most dreadful smell. We had some boiled
yesterday for an experiment and they were quite unbearable.
Papa has been once out with his gun and had six shots in the morning
which was thought grand for our spot of ground. There is the very
large covey in the out field and the hares they say are all in swarms
(Clarke's account) in . . .'s field, but of course you will look down
with supreme distance at that Cockney account of sport from where you
are and I only tell you for want of something better to say.
Mary does not seem to like Liverpool. She gives a very long
account of both town, country and people and seems particularly
edified at the ladies toilettes. You know I suppose that they
are going to Boughton[?] Mrs Isac's after they leave Liverpool so
they will not be home much before October. Aunt . . . and
Willy[?] are still here but I should think would leave us for
Brussels soon now. The Aunts and the two cousins have been
staying in York Gate some days. The latter returned last night
after having seen all the Panoramas and Dioramas to be caught in
London. The two former are still in London cleaning poor York
Gate after the evacuations of the Philistines who have left it in a
terrible state of disorder (the . . . won't write every now and then)
amongst other things George says having amused themselves with
drawing in charcoal over the front attic walls. I do not know
whether Adelaide asked you to take care of for me my shawl and button
hook which I hope you have or I may lie down and die at once as I
have no money to buy either one or the other if I have lost them at Boulogne.
Goodbye dearest Martin
Your most affectionate
E Louisa Marsh
Eastbury, Thursday,
Letter from Arthur Marsh to his son Martin Marsh. The letter reads as follows:
Saturday 25 October 1845
My dear Martin
I enclose a £10 note: acknowledge the receipt of it to your
mother, for I am going tomorrow to Sir John Cope's and I fear that I
shall not be at home again until Wednesday evening. It is time
to think of entering you at one of the Inns of Court. My
present bias is towards Lincoln's Inn as I have a strong notion that
it is the most respectable and the more gentleman's Inn: Why I cannot
well and satisfactorily answer to myself and will make further
enquiries. Do you on your side, the same: and among the men of
your acquaintance who are going to the bar; general impressions on
such a . . . are commonly correct. As to the branch of the
profession that you will embrace, you ought now to begin to enquire .
. . on this point also I have a leaning that is to Equity.
However we have time enough to discuss this matter together; but the
point of which Inn, should be determined as soon as possible.
God bless you my dear Boy.
Ever most affectionately yours
ACM
Your Grandfather and Aunt Georgy are returned to York Gate; but I
believe they will move to Cheltenham . . . long. Tip in perfect
health. The . . . of the . . . which you please is
convalescent. I have just put your name down as a Candidate at
this Club.
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. Dated 4 November and in pencil 1845. The letter reads as follows:
Eastborough Nov 4th 1845
My dearest Martin,
I did not write to you yesterday as I wanted to send you a post
office order in my letter. This order the man by mistake
instead of sending up here has dispatched direct from Watford.
I hope you will receive it safe and just give me one line to
acknowledge it when it comes. It is for £3, which is what
I owed you for the expense of your rides last winter and which now I
have got some money for my book, I hasten to send you, as I think it
will be acceptable. You will soon want some more of your own
money. Send us word the week before, and then we will remit you
what you want. The reason why I wish to know the week before
is, that all your money is invested in different things, and I do not
wish to sell until it is actually wanted as in the present state of
the market it would be to disadvantage. I got only £200
for this last story. £80 of which due to my old plan I
immediately sort to invest, the rest is pretty actively employed as
you will easily suppose. I was much disappointed not to get
£900 for my story but Mr Colburn has promised me £100
more if the thing sells well. I shall in future write to you
upon a Tuesday, instead of Monday, as I dedicate Monday to my next
story - which is to be something superfine. Now to answer your
letter. I am not sorry that you have a little more time to
brush up your Greek grammar. I will next Sunday have the
supreme pleasure of hearing that you have passed. We often
think of you, and last Friday related how he is in the schools.
I pat and love your dog for your sake and he does everything in the
world but speak to me in return. His reproaches to Mary the other day
because she had taken out Sony[?] a walking and had left him at home
were something that only wanted consonants to make them words. Your
father I think had a pleasant visit at Burnshill[?] though nothing
very brilliant occurred the meet of the hounds was pretty. He
and Sir Hyde walking to it as their host did not offer to mount
them. Afterwards he went to Sir Hyde's which he seems to think
a very pretty sort of thing. The accounts of your Grandpapa
[William Marsh] are better I think but he does not seem to be much
the better for having left Eastbury, indeed it is evident that London
does not agree with him so well. Your oxen are removed to the
rickyard[?] meadow and are coming on remarkably well. The first
months seems to be spent in getting out of harness, and the 2nd . . .
in fattening them. The further side of Bonughs[?] Hill and the
Lucenip[?] are sowed with wheat finished and done. They are now
employed in getting in the roots, and when that is done will finish
the wheat sowing such an Autumn surely was never seen before for
sowing heavy lands. I hope Foster and Garth are both by this
time happily on the right side of their Little Go, and that we shall
have one or both for the St.Albans Ball. Our Dinning room we
all think extremely pretty. It will very soon be finished and
curtains up and all. I think your father takes as much pleasure
in it as any of us. I think I am come to the end of my matter,
so farewell dearest dearest Martin. One word to say you got the
order safe, only one line. Ever your tenderly loving Mother.
Letter from Arthur Marsh to his son Martin Marsh. The letter reads as follows:
7 November 1845
My dear Martin
I shall be most anxious to hear how you have . . . and as I go
tomorrow to Pelli I shall not hear, unless you will give me a line there:
at Lady Pelli
Wilburton
West Ely
Pray do so therefore, and at the same time you can tell me whether
you have had time to make any enquires as the Comparative merits of
Lincoln's Inn verse the Temples.
Ever most affectionately yours
ACM.
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. Dated 25 November and in pencil 1845. The letter reads as follows:
Nov 25th 1845
My dearest Martin,
I have your journal letter to answer this morning, and I have first
got your business letter which I will answer first as it is of the
most importance. I shall send you in this letter two half notes of
£10 each and as soon as you advertise me that you have received
these safe, I will send you the other halves. When you have
received this £20 you will have had during the whole year all
things included except the £9 I sent for my rides,
£219.10. Which is a very small sum for you to have spent
and gives your father and myself very great satisfaction. I
sold your oxen which cost you £36.10 yesterday for £57.10,
a pretty good return, in less than three months. And I hope
next year we shall have a good many more for we might just as well
have had £12 as six and I dare say 18 would have proved good
enough. Your clear benefit upon this affair is £6.10 and
your father received, £9 for his gross, £5 of which is due
to your little bank as interest. We are all in the same boat as
you say, more especially your father, you and I, as no circumstance
can ever part, as your dear sisters may enter other families, but you
and us must always be one. I hope to keep holding a little on
one side to your stock as we draw off upon the other, and in no way
more certainly than by thus consuming the gross upon the farm.
I have now got all your money invested . . . except £50, which I
have safe in your drawer to take in hand to Oxford next term. I
think things begin to look up with us as the saying is, and I hope by
care and activity and looking to the pence upon the farm that we
shall make it workable at last to the public purse. As your
private account stands now I have added £57.8 to it this year,
and I hope to give as good an account of better next, but we shall
see. Now for the formal, I think I was at least as much pleased
with your hunt as you could possibly have been yourself. It
gives me so much joy to think that you who are so self denying and so
good should at times share in the pleasures natural to your age.
I am very glad too that you are resolved to take every opportunity
of . . . ing your acquaintances. I believe Oxford is of more
use in that than perhaps in the learning it will put into your
head. Still I feel sure that you cannot work hard without great
trust and I believe as I said before those who are never put upon the
sh . . . always find reason to reject it. The dreadful waste
that young men of fortune make of life is something that it is quite
awful to think of. An account they must render whether they
expect it or no that will not prevent the day coming when every one
must render a return of talents used or miss applied, and even in
this world reprobation in some shape comes. Hours wasted are
never to be redeemed. One may spend the future better but the
past is impossible. The . . . taken however must be very great,
and unfortunately there is no very defined aim for young men of
fortune if they reflected a little they would feel the necessity of
cultivating the mind in order to ply worthily the part in life to
which they are destined, but you who have a defined aim are certainly
in this respect far happier. I think you are quite right in a
lot you say about having a . . .
[part of the page has been ripped out at this point]
. . . considered of, but more especially he recommends two things, an elocution master, to teach you how to express yourself in a brief and pointed manner, without too many words, and great aptness at accounts, make him a master of accounts, I have seen more men got on by being able to seize upon and order . . .
[part of the page has been ripped out at this point]
Letter from Arthur Marsh to his son Martin Marsh. The letter reads as follows:
Eastbury
7 December 1845
My dear Martin
Your Mother desires me to remit you some money and I enclose a Bank
Post Bill for £20.14.6. When you pay it away, you must
write your name on the back under mine, technically called endorsing
it. Your Mother and I are going on Wednesday to Mr Wharton at
Hyde Park Gardens and mean to stay there until Saturday. You
are invited to dinner there on Wednesday, but as York Gate is no
longer available I don't know whether you will think it worthwhile to
go and you can do as you like. I will send the old grey mare
out to Uxbridge for you on Tuesday, (which is the best I can do for
you) as your Mother will go up in the carriage on Wednesday and the
roads are so heavy and the two little mares so out of condition that
I cannot send either of them over to Uxbridge the evening
before. Let me know what time you will be at Uxbridge on
Tuesday. Oh! I have just heard that you are to be there at half
past 9, so adieu and au revoir.
Ever most affectionately yours
ACM
Letter from Anne Marsh (Marsh-Caldwell) to her son Martin Marsh. The date written in pencil appears to be 2 February 1846, but actual date is probably late December 1845 . The letter reads as follows:
My dearest Martin
It annoys and vexes me very much to be obliged to put off returning
to our studies at the time I hoped. We shall lose a week, which
is I am happy to say, a serious loss to us. Happy as I hope it
is at least a proof that our time is valuable. I think the best
thing you can do will be to go on with Mill[?] giving abstracts in
the margin as you go along which I can look over with you when I
return. We shall by this means be able still to accomplish our
purpose of finishing it together before we part. The English
history you will of course read, and one of your sisters will enjoy
going on with the sums with you which renders the task much more
animating and tolerable than . . . ing at it by your self. You
understand that I advise you to go on reading Mill[?]where we have
not read it together. The abstracts in the margin will show me
sufficiently if you understand it. I am afraid it will be
impossible for me to be with you before Monday week. Tell
Lousia if you please, that a small box, containing my diamond rings,
gold chain bracelet Topsoy broach, and pearl and diamond broach did
not come. That I should be glad she would enquire of Mary
Clarke about it, and have it carefully locked up till my return.
I think all the four sisters may just as well go to Mrs Hibberts ,
even if she has not accepted for so Mary, Posy says, she is always so
glad of numbers finding it difficult to fill her rooms. Mrs
Eden speaks of her dearest Louisa in tones it would do her heart good
to hear even when she mentions her quite incidentally. The
account of your grandfather was so indifferent that your father
left us for Cheltenham yesterday, faithful to the performance of
those duties he so admirably displays and proof against all . .
. The accounts are written in a letter today. We are very
busy making preparations for the ball tomorrow, 50 of the tenantry
and about 50 of the Gentry dining in the great dining room supper in
the library. Great difficulty to get good music. Rooms
drapped with . . ., supper superb. On Tuesday Mrs
Bamosdstones[?] ball, on Friday the Thelford[?] Aperbly[?]. I
shall be too much tied to set out on Saturday. I have been
correcting proofs and writing upon the subject and have a horrid bad
cold and am very much tired so addio Mio Caso and diletto speme, your
loving Mother.
All sorts of love the darling sisterhood.
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(Home) (Ann Marsh-Caldwell) (Arthur Marsh) (Martin Marsh) (Letters References & Notes 1780-1874)