L30/14/315/17

From Beilby Porteus, Hunton to 2nd Baron Grantham:

10 Aug 1777

From: 1777 To: 1777

Asks a favour, can he use Grantham's house in London if he hasn't bought his own by Christmas. Returned from Chester and making preparations for a Visitation next year; house splendid, built by Dr. Keene now Bishop of Ely. Bought furniture as it stood from predecessor Archbishop Markham. Met with great civility from gentry and Clergy of the Town & Neighbourhood. `The town is very old & very singular etc..." Walls entire, kept in good repair for walking by the Corporation, expense supported by a very small Tax on the Irish linen imported into Chester at the time of the Fair. [Reviews of the publications of this year most of which covered in previous letters]. Bishop Pearce's comment on part of the New Testament "contains nothing very original". An answer to Gibbon's work is available by Dr. Watson of Cambridge. More on Lord Chesterfield's letters, two new volumes "not so offensive and indecent as the two first...more chit chat, familiar letters...half a dozen Topics run through the whole...; his awkward Son, his own deafness...his Love of refinement & want of Ambition, his Ananas [Latin generic name for pineapple] & Canteloupe Melons...". Cook's and Forster's narratives, prefers former's "unpretending plainness & simplicity". Grantham & Waddilove `immortalized' in Robertson's work. Author could not however, get access to the Original Papers concerning the Conquest and Settlement of South America and therefore little added to stock of Historical Knowledge. Convert Soame Jenyns' book has great faults but greater excellencies in its attraction to "those thoughtless, dissipated young men who would never have read a syllable on the subject of Religion if they had not been bribed to it by the wit & pleasantry" of S.J. A "silly trivial thing called The Life of Mr. Hume written by himself & published by his friend Dr. Adam Smith, who proposed him to the World as the Pattern of a perfectly wise & Virtuous man". Reply was made to Smith by Horne, President of Magdalen, Oxford "written with great Spirit & Humour setting Mr. Hume...in a very ridiculous but very just point of view". Has seen neither Grantham's sister or Miss Parker, sees Mrs. Stainforth often. Dr. Butler now promoted to See of Oxford.

item

Keene, Edmund,
Markham, William,
Pearce,
Gibbon,
Watson,
Chesterfield,
Cook,
Forster,
Waddilove,
Robertson,
Jenyns, Soame,
Hume,
Smith, Adam,
Horne,
Parker,
Stainforth,
Butler

Bishop of Ely, Archbishop, literature, Christmas, London, Chester