To Thomas Archer Hirst   Sunday¹

Sunday

My dear Tom

Your bill² shall be duly paid.

I have requested Gyde³ to purchase the book⁴ for you and send it down to Queenwood. I shall probably see Francis in the course of the week and learn something more of M^r Price.

I wish you would tie the Scientific Memoirs⁵ together along with Stegmanns book.⁶ as if you do not want them I shall bring them up with me.

I have read your letter to Bevington⁷ and have been impudent enough to send it back to you.

1. I would suggest the total omission of the first paragraph it has not its melody of a prelude in music and it adds nothing whatever to the information regarding Henry Hill. It is mechanical and therefore I dislike it.

2. It would be almost better to omit commas altogether than to use them in such profusion as you do. It stiffens your writing by giving it a studied air.

3. I would omit the word ‘most’ before ‘distinguished’ in the second page. In considering what you have said of your other pupils, he might have excelled them and be nothing particular after all. Next sentence ‘He was then a currier and leather cutter’ is awkwardly brought in – you say so afterward and it ought to be omitted here.

4. Your description of Henry’s way of shewing his friendship by hiding round corners pleases me exceedingly. It is the simple statement of a pleasant fact, and is therefore interesting.

5. ‘I found him as honest as the day’ I dont know that the day is particularly honest although thoughtless people have been pleased to invent the above simile – such similes however tolerated in conversation ought to be banished from writing. The comma after ‘same’ spoils the sense.

6. I object most gravely against the expression ‘although a beggar’. If I have rightly understood your description of Henry Hill the statement is absolutely untrue. You mean to say he was poor. Why not say so? There is an infinite difference between both – and the expression is quite inconsistent with what follows. Have you not dwelt upon Hill’s obstinacy a little too much. Did I know nothing about him I should rather fear him from what you have said upon this point.

7. I think it is perfectly within your power so to massage your description that the thought of employing him at Neckinger⁸ should arise spontaneously in Bevington’s own mind – and the proposal will come far better from him than from you. If he can do it he will and I would leave him the credit of making the proposition himself. I have little doubt that either he or his friend Bennett⁹ will be able to do something for Henry.

On the whole I think this is an important letter and therefore is worth being well done. I frankly confess my belief that if you took a little more time you could state your case in a more pleasing manner than you have here succeeded in doing. I dont like to accept haste as an excuse in a case like the present. If I can make a guess I would venture to say that the letter is not quite such as you like yourself. If you modify the parts I have referred to then I think it will answer very well, although it will still remain in parts a head production, and not connected with that fountain from which truly good writing must ever spring.

Your affectionate | John

RI MS JT/1/T/942