Lot 364

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Description:

Capel Lofft Inquires Re:"Bookseller to the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade" 1799

This fascinating letter by attorney and literary patron Capel Lofft to book collector and editor Thomas Hill discusses an upcoming sale or auction of the library of English essayist and poet Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and raises questions about Addison's marriage to the Countess of Warwick. In this chatty letter, Lofft also addresses a variety of other subjects and events, including sending copies of the London Review and The Mirror, the latter edited by Hill, to America; the publication of anti-Jacobin poetry; a special parliamentary election in Norwich to fill the vacancy created by the death of Henry Hobart (John Frere was elected with 1,345 votes over Robert Fellowes, who received 1,186 votes); the upcoming publication of The Wreath (1799), a compilation of selections from Greek and Roman poets with translations, notes, and remarks on Shakespeare's use of these classical works, edited by Edward Dubois (1774-1850) with the assistance of Lofft; and the illustration of John Milton's Paradise Lost in a series of forty pictures by Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), which he created from 1791 to 1799 and exhibited in London in 1799 and 1800.

[ENGLISH LITERATURE]. Capel Lofft, Autograph Letter Signed, to Thomas Hill, May 27, 1799, [London, England]. 4 pp., 7.375" x 8.75". Some residue on fourth page from prior mounting; very good.

Complete Transcript
Dear Sir,
I hope I shall have the pleasure of sending you the Milton very soon.
My idea of sending to America was by a private hand through which I expect soon to have an opportunity. If you would like to take the chance of it the Parcel may be sent to me. I believe also that Mr Phillips the Bookseller to the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Geo: 3d Lombard Str: if my name were mentioned to him, or indeed without, on the merit of the Publications, would willingly forward a specimen of the London Review & the Mirror (both or either to America.
With regard to the Antijacobin Poetry as a lawyer a magistrate, & a man, I should not like to publish anything which could be fairly prosecuted: nor would I commit the New London Review its Proprietors or Publisher by sending to it anything which according to any just or reasonable probability should be likely to incur that notice. That is all I can say. I am certainly very much obliged by your kind notice & the very liberal adoption of it.
I fear the Norwich Contest is likely to proceed this day and it is thought it will last [thru?] with great vehemence & animosity.
I wish both parties could have consented which I do not think impracticable according to the presumed numbers of voters (about 5000) to such Modes of taking the Poll as might have carried it through in one day. The chief evils of every kind generally occur after the first days Poll.
I have carefully revised the Wreath and I think I have discovered all the Errata which exist. They are much fewer & of less importance than usual. Still I wish, so near absolute typographical correctness, that the work might have to say that it has attained it.
Many thanks for Fuseli's timely interesting Egyptian Catalogue of his Miltonian Pictures. The subjects appear excellently chosen. The Remarks on the different limits of Painting & of verbal description appears to be equally just & important. the multaque tolles / ex oculis quo mox narret facundia praesens
[Latin from Horace, Ars Poetica: “you will keep much from your eyes, which an actor's ready tongue will narrate anon in our presence”] has an application as true as it is relative to Painting as in its original use as respecting dramatic Action.
Spenser a Poet otherwise of exquisite Beauty & very frequent Grandeur and of vivid Imagery sometimes details objects as if he painted them, which no eloquence will make sufferable even in words.
The Remark is curious with respect to the Memorandum of the Birth of Children in one of Addison's Books. There appeared otherwise nothing to lead one to suppose that he had been married except only to the Countess of Warwick. Can this Register relate to Children of hers by her former Husband? I believe not. It seems at least by Johnson's Account that the young Ld Warwick must have been considerably older than these dates would make him when Addison died in 1719 three years after this Marriage with the Countess.
There are many Books in this Collection which could not belong to him: but which perhaps are not less valuable from the filial affection & good sense of his lately deceased Daughter. There are fewer either classic or diplomatic than from his character, circumstances, & situation one should have been perhaps led to expect. I had some expectation that in the 1st edn of Milton there would have been some MS observations, Addison having been one of the first who did justice to this great Author; & who certainly more than any promoted a general attention to him.
I enclose a small List discretionary if they come moderate & this Letter is received in time, which I would wish to be bid for: partly for Friends, partly for myself.
I remain / Dear Sir
yrs very sincerely / & affectionately
Capel Lofft
Thos Hill Esqr.
27 May 99
Mond:
I have set down more Books from the Addison Library than I would mean to have. If three or four can be had cheap I would wish to stop there: but have set down more not knowing which may go dear or otherwise; this depending generally I think in all sales upon unforeseen Contingencies. I would not go to an high price for any I have struck out the Aldine Lucretius.

Capel Lofft (1751-1824) was born in London and educated at Eton College, Cambridge. He trained as a lawyer at Lincoln's Inn and was called to the bar in 1775. In 1778, he married Anne Emlyn, with whom he had at least five children. He practiced law and wrote extensively on legal and political subjects. When he defended a young servant woman who was convicted of stealing and accompanied her to the gallows in 1800, he was struck from the list of qualified lawyers. He also had an amateur interest in astronomy, and he became the patron of Robert Bloomfield and other literary figures. The deaths of his father and uncle in 1811 left him with a large estate. His support of Napoleon made him unpopular with many, and he moved to Europe in 1816 for his daughter's education. He died in Italy.

Thomas Hill (1760-1840) was a drysalter at Queenhithe in London, the editor of The Monthly Mirror, and a book collector. He supervised the publication of Robert Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy and other books of poetry. He had a house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, and a cottage at Sydenham, Kent, where he entertained writers, actors, and artists.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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