Letter from Uvedale Price, Worcester, to Lady Margaret Beaumont, 1814 July 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying that he is on his way back to Foxley from Sunninghill; discussing an ode, Europe Rediviva; saying that it was unfair of her to compare it to work by "inspired writers, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Wordsworth, & Coleridge" but "for a mere human ode, this [...] seems to me the best that has been produced for many years, not excepting my own on the burning of Moscow, for which of course I must feel some partiality"; praising particular stanzas and qualities of the work, especially an address delivered by Napoleon; saying that Lady Margaret seems to him "to be something of a Quaker in respect to poetry; you disdain to exercise your reason & judgment, & wait to see whether spirit moves you"; wondering whether she would have given the ode greater credit and looked harder for virtues in it if it had been sent to her by Coleridge or Wordsworth; discussing the nature of literary fame and how it influences readers of contemporary works published anonymously; telling her an anecdote about Voltaire in reference to this subject; revealing the name of the author of Europe Rediviva to her (Henry Gally Knight); asking how she feels about the ode now that she knows its author; saying that the ode has raised his estimation of Knight as a poet; including a comic poem by Knight, along with a verse by Price himself; commenting on his health and the ineffectiveness of various diets, though thanking her for recommending Cornaro's advice on temperate living; quoting a line in Greek from Xenophon's Cyropaedia; adding that he had to finish this letter at Foxley because an insect stung him in the eye during his journey; sending greetings from his wife and daughter and saying that his son has gone to the Isle of Wight.