From James Bryn¹

Mon cher Jean,

<Unknown number of lines missing>²

before this only your father³ desired me not to write when I asked him for your direction, as he did not know where to direct his letter also that he had sent you two to the old place where your letters were re-directed and received no answer, now you may perceive I was determined not to let my instructive or rather entertaining communication go astray (Ahem hem take breath) and now you have Byrn's true and genuine reasons all else being counterfeit for his not sooner acknowledging the receipt of your very entertaining new year's gift, alias journal though last not least what shall I say about the valentine nothing save that there is something indescribably beautiful in the four lines it contains and that I consider myself blessed in having a friend such an one as you to call on in time of need do not conclude by my saying this that I am bespeaking another for Feb. 1846. No such thing I regret to say it was not in my power to send it away thro’ my being very ill and remain not much better still, with a bad cough and pain in the side I was so sick when I attempted to direct <1-2 lines missing>⁴ I will in my next letter mention her name I am serious indeed (‘Tis true tis a pity tis true’)⁵ Verily verily I say unto you that it is easier for a dromedary to go through the eye of my mother’s⁶ cambric⁷ needle than for me ever to forget her. Another never shall usurp her place in my memory or heart. When I see her and cannot speak to her without a third person being by I feel in spite of myself a kind of joyful melancholy stealing over me. Excuse this nonsensical preamble. I know you will when you recollect that I am in love and sick besides indeed John I am getting very bad health.

I remain ever | Yours sincere and affectionate | James Byrn⁸

P.S. I send you a scrap of poetry called Sir Walter Scott’s Study⁹ I consider it beautiful let me know how you like the Spaniard of 1836,¹⁰ to Cupid, adieu | J.B.

Sir Walter Scott’s Study. By R. Thomas.¹¹

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Tread lightly! ’tis a land of spells!

‘Tis ‘fairy Fiction’s’ throne!

And here her great magician dwells,

Unrivall’d and alone!

Glance round in silence and in awe,

Unlike to him who rashly saw

Agrippa’s¹² chamber shown;

For who would dare in lore to face

This master spirit of this place?

The relics of a distant age,

The helmet and the spear,

The blazon’d shield, the <missal> page,

And Gothic towers are here:

Like fragments gathered from the tomb,

By Wizard in the midnight gloom,

To make the dead appear!

So these, with art as great constrain

Long buried years to rise again!

And they were mighty spells of yore,

<For knight or priest to wield;

Which chain’d the soul in mysic lore>

Or fired it for the field:

But, though they oft might wrested be,

Of old, to craft and cruelty,

Yet now those arts they yield;

And like dead giants, most avail

To weave the magic of a tale.

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RI MS JT/1/TYP/11/3490-3491

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