Memoir of Francis Hodgson
Thomas Moore to Francis Hodgson, 21 February 1828
19 Bury Street, St. James’s: February 21, 1828.
My dear Hodgson,—I despatch you this note lest you should be
wondering at my silence, though the ![]()
| 160 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. | |
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mere fact of my
prolonged stay in town (which you may have learned from Arkwright) will already perhaps have
sufficiently accounted for it. You have already, I doubt not, heard from our
friends at Stoke of the renewal of my agreement with Murray, and the very prosperous terms on which
I am now to bring out the work. There are two or three points of detail to be
settled between us yet, but I have no doubt of the coalition (unlike those of
political personages) turning out satisfactorily to all parties.
I wrote to Hobhouse
soon after I left you, acquainting him with the success of my researches, both
at Southwell and with you, and had an answer from him full of kindness, and
mentioning you in terms of cordial import. I have seen him only once since I
came to town; but Murray tells me he is
highly pleased with the new arrangement we have made. In order that you might
have your letters back as soon as possible, I was about to entrust them to a
friend of mine here to copy them for me, but I will keep them now till I get
home and transmit them to you from thence, having transcribed them myself.
I mean to write to Mrs.
Arkwright as soon as I arrive at Sloperton, but in the meantime
pray tell ![]()
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her that her book has
remained sacredly closed ever since I left Stoke, much to the astonishment, I
dare say, of its contents, which are but little accustomed to have such
‘a chain of silence’ over them.
Yours, my dear Hodgson,
very truly,
Robert Arkwright (1783-1859)
Of Sutton Scarsdale; he married the actress Frances Crawford Kemble in 1805. He was a
friend of Francis Hodgson and Thomas Moore.
John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published
Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as
Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
