The Creevey Papers
James Currie to Thomas Creevey, 20 January 1801
“20th Jan., 1801.
“. . . I envy you the company you keep. When you tell
me of meeting Erskine, Parr and Mackintosh familiarly, I sigh at my allotment in this corner of
the Island. It is impossible not to rust here, even if one had talents of a
better kind. In London, and perhaps there only, practice and exercise keep men
polished and bright. . . . So you are become an intimate friend of Lady Oxford. My dear Creevey—these women—these beautiful women—are
the devil’s most powerful temptation—but I will not moralize, on
paper at least. . . .”
Thomas Creevey (1768-1838)
Whig politician aligned with Charles James Fox and Henry Brougham; he was MP for Thetford
(1802-06, 1807-18) Appleby (1820-26) and Downton (1831-32). He was convicted of libel in
1813.
Thomas Erskine, first baron Erskine (1750-1823)
Scottish barrister who was a Whig MP for Portsmouth (1783-84, 1790-1806); after defending
the political radicals Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794 he was lord chancellor in the
short-lived Grenville-Fox administration (1806-07).
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
Samuel Parr (1747-1825)
English schoolmaster, scholar, and book collector whose strident politics and assertive
personality involved him in a long series of quarrels.
