[Joseph Jekyll, Regency politician and wit.] Autograph Letter Signed to George Agar-Ellis, on missing the 'Academy Dinner' by dining with the king; and manuscript copy of pun-laden account of ‘Bazaar in Mr Penn’s Garden for Charing Cross Hospital’.

The first item is fairly witty, while the second exhibits the sort of ‘excruciating puns’ for which Jekyll is, according to his entry in the Oxford DNB, largely remembered. See also Agar-Ellis’s entry in the same work. The two items are in good condition, lightly aged. ONE: Letter of ‘Sunday Morning’ to ‘Dear Ellis’. 2pp, 12mo. Signed ‘Joseph Jekyll’. Folded twice. Minuted by recipient at head of first page: ‘May 1825 / Jekyll’. Begins: After a Months Enjoyment of the Habeas Corpus the Govt most unconstitutionally suspended it last Wednesday, and ordered me into a third Confinement without Bail or Mainprize, but I have good nights, not much Pain, and no Foreign Office’. He regrets having missed ‘the Academy Dinner’, ‘though Rogers, [the poet Samuel Rogers] with whom Joseph breakfasted yesterday, said it was crowded’. ‘At any rate I was not to be there, as the King sent in the Morning to tell me to dine with him; but the Govt disobeys Kings, and despises the Liberal Arts, having quizzed the Art of Healing for three thousand Years.’ TWO: Manuscript account of what is described by Agar-Ellis in his minuting at the head of the first page as ‘Bazaar in Mr Penn’s Garden for Charing Cross Hospital’. 3pp, 12mo. Bifolium. Fifty-four lines, signed at end ‘J. J.’ The writer identified by Agar-Ellis as ‘Jekyll’, and while the document may be the original in Jekyll’s autograph, the handwriting is less loose and much neater than that of Item One, suggesting a copy. Begins: ‘Mr. Penn pennetrated [sic] with the Principle “that Charity should begin at home” yesteday threw open his Mansion & extensive Shurubberies to atttract the Rich for the Benefit of the Poor, to declare New Street in a State of Blockade without a Casus Foederis -’. Among other flighs of fancy the account continues with reference to ‘perpenndicular Columns’, ‘three Harpers of Pennmanmawr playing Pennillions’, ‘the Inkas [sic] of Peru’, ‘Beauty to which neither Penn nor Penncil can do justice’, ‘the Margrave of Penndennis, Sr. Uter Penndragon, Bart.’, ‘the honourable Pennelope Pennsive’, ‘the Dean of Pennzance’, ‘Pennobscot’, ‘Brigadier General Penntagon of the Engineers pennsioned for the loss of his Nose in the Penninsular’, ‘Abraham Penntateuch Esqr.’, ‘Penntonville’, ‘the Dowager Lady Pennteazle with the two lovely Pennguins her Grand Daughters’.