Devonshire Cottage Richmond (2 results)

2pp., 12mo. 30 lines. Good, on lightly-aged paper. She begins by explaining that it was 'by an entire mistake' that Mrs Lamb's money (presumably the rent for Devonshire Lodge, owned by Mrs Lamb) was not paid, and that the mistake is 'now cleared up, & the money is to be paid this very morning by Coutt's into your Banker's'. Her sister Mary is not able to pass on this information herself, as 'she has been for above a fortnight so very unwell as not to be able to write, or occupy herself in any way - a severe fit of & Influenza has confined her, & kept me in great agony about her'. Agnes 'does not yet see any steady steps towards amendment' in her sister's health, 'one day a little better, & the next a little worse, is all the changes I have yet seen - but I go on trying to hope that a few better days may still be allowed us'. The sisters are expecting Lady Scott in town the following day, accompanied by her friend Miss Murray, who is 'just arrived in London with her two nieces, one of whom with a very serious ill, comes for medical advice'. She ends by asking Mrs Lamb to inform her when she returns to Richmond. Richard Crisp's 'Richmond and its Inhabitants from the Olden Time' (1866) refers to Mary's severe illness of 1844, and quotes Mary in the following year stating that she is 'once again in Mrs. Lamb's house'.…

4pp., 12mo. 75 lines. On bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. The entire document is in Mary Berry's autograph. The letter proper, of 57 lines, is signed 'Devonshire Cottage / a true Copy / M Berry', the joke, such as it is, being that Mary Berry has copied out a document written by Devonshire Cottage itself to its owner, the Hon. Mrs George Lamb (Caroline, or 'Caro George' Lamb, from whom the Berry sister's were leasing it). An eighteen-line postscript, dated 'Monday 1st July', and also signed 'M Berry', is written in a straightforward style, with the valediction reading 'And so God bless'. The first sixteen lines read: 'This is to inform her [i.e. Mrs Lamb], that at this present writing I [i.e. Devonshire Cottage] am in great health & beauty, that I am taken especial care of by your two Lieutenants [i.e. the Berry sisters], & that I am very much admired by all their friends & acquaintance, who have poured in upon me in numbers during the last six weeks - They have constantly occupied me, in the way that you recommended, making the4 dining Room what it was intended to be, which your Tenants, as well as every body else, find so much more agreeable & convenient, that they only wonder it could ever have been otherwise arranged -'. The rest of the letter includes references to the refurbishment of the house, to General Piggott, to Lord Morpeth and Lady Mary, and to Lady Scott, with the Cottage 'begging you to present my Villaships respects to the Palacehood of Castle Howard'.…