Written from Foxley, Price's estate near Yazor, Herefordshire.
This item was formerly identified as MA 1581 (Price) 31.
This letter is from a large collection of letters written to Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) and Lady Margaret Willes Beaumont (1758-1829) of Coleorton Hall, and to other members of the Beaumont family.
Agreeing with Beaumont as to "the danger of attempting picturesque groups of buildings"; adding that "the most unchaste imitation of a picturesque group could hardly be more disgusting even when new, than my neighbour Sir George's chaste erection at Moccas" (probably a reference to Sir George Cornewall's residence, Moccas Court); describing Moccas Court as exhibiting "the mere absence of irregularity without any one pleasing quality to recommend it"; mentioning that Lord Tyrconnell has come to pay him a visit on "his way from the North where he has just been settling his daughter's marriage with Lord Strathmore. I had no idea that he was so rich; Tyrconnel tells me he has a clear twenty thousand a year"; saying that he does not know Strathmore personally but he hears him spoken well of and hopes he will make his niece a good husband: "she deserves that he should in every respect, for she is very handsome, & uncommonly sweet-tempered; & though fortune is no object to him, will bring him about forty thousand pound" (Price appears to be referring to his niece Lady Susanna Hussey Carpenter, who did not after all marry Strathmore, but instead married Henry Beresford, 2nd Marquess of Waterford); asking whether Beaumont ever followed his recommendation and read Montaigne's Essays; describing the aspects of Montaigne that he thinks would appeal to Beaumont; identifying two passages in Voltaire's Alzire and Rousseau's Ode to Fortune that he believes are directly inspired by Montaigne; discussing the different interpretation that Rousseau brings to the passage in question (a comparison of Socrates with Alexander); mentioning that he must postpone "our visit to Buonaparte" because he is using the money that would have been spent on a trip to buy a farm "intermixed with one of mine"; adding that working on the farm and other projects will probably keep them at home for the foreseeable future, though "London is full of temptations; of old & of new, of passing & of stationary; I am tempted by the pictures you have mentioned at Bryants', & by the many pictures & drawings that are sure to be produced in the course of the winter; I am tempted by Mrs Billington, whom I have not heard since her return; I am tempted by the friends and acquaintances whom I can only see by going to town; & tho last, not least in love, by a certain family in Grosvenor Square to whom we all desire to be most kindly remembered ..."; expressing doubt in a postscript about whether a Mr. Griffith could build a house based on designs of John Nash's for the sum he had originally expected.