Edward Magrath to Faraday   13 February 1836

Athenaeum | 13 February 1836

My dear Faraday

I send Lewis's1 Allhambra2 with which I hope you and Mrs Faraday will be pleased. Do not be in haste to return.

I am agreeably surprised by intelligence in the Athenaeum Paper of this morning, that I have a Wife and Daughter vide the Raumer's3 England reviewed in that work4. To celebrate this event so important in a National and personal point of view I shall seriously have the following gentlemen who I hope will joyfully meet here tonight after six and if before Ten you could favor us with your presence to temper our Spirits and regulate our joy for which see Fraser5 I shall be most happy to place an extra Bowl & another Tumbler on the Table for your Service[.] The following are to be the Sponsors Decimus Burton6, Stanfield7[,] Haviland Burke, & Robertson8 of Covent Garden. You may assure yourself they will promise & vow every thing that the rubric of [word illegible] as [word illegible] requires in my daughters name[.]

This enlivening circumstance has of course dispelled the Blues and I am equally bankrupt in Yellows[.] Pray supply my wants[.]

Ever yours E. Magrath

Michael Faraday Esq.

1
John Frederick Lewis (1805-1876, DNB). Painter.
2
Lewis [1835].
3
Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer (1781-1873, NBU). German historian.
4
Raumer (1836). The Athenaeum, 13 February 1836, pp. 122-8 published extracts. The reference to Magrath occurs on pp.124-5.
5
"Gallery of literary characters, No. LXIX. Michael Faraday, F.R.S., Hon. D.C.L. Oxon, Etc. Etc.", Fraser's Mag., 1836, 13: 224. This article, by William Maginn (1793- 1842, DNB, poet and journalist), was part of the fall out from the pension controversy. It was accompanied by a drawing of Faraday by Daniel Maclise (1806-1870, DNB, painter) which is reproduced as plate 8.
6
Decimus Burton (1800-1881, DNB). Architect.
7
Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867, DNB). Marine and landscape painter.
8
Unidentified.

Bibliography

LEWIS, John Frederick [1835]: Lewis's sketches and drawings of the Alhambra, made during a residence in Granada, in ... 1833-4, London.

RAUMER, Friedrich Ludwig Georg von (1836): England in 1835: being a series of letters written to friends in Germany, during a residence in London and excursions into the provinces, 3 volumes, London.

Please cite as “Faraday0894,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 29 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0894