[Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London.] Five Autograph Letters Signed (all ‘B. London’) to Thomas Maurice of the British Museum, two with detailed criticism of Maurice’s poem on Pitt the Younger.

See the two men’s entries in the Oxford DNB. The five items are in good condition, lightly aged, with each on a 4to bifolium, and all folded for postage. In a neat and attractive hand. The text of each letter is on the first leaf, and the first two letters are addressed by Porteus on the reverse of the second leaf, each with broken seals in red wax. In Letters Four and Five Porteus lays out his objections to Maurice’s ‘Elegy on the late Right Honourable William Pitt’, published in 1806 under the name ‘T. M.’ ONE (St James’s Square, 10 April 1898): 1p, 4to. Addressed to ‘Revd. Mr Maurice / No. 19. Princes Street / Cavendish Square’. He is ‘overwhelmed by Business’, but hopes to read Maurice’s letter and two pamphlets ‘when I move into the Country’. ‘The Point you are labour is a curious & important one, & I have little doubt of your being able to substantiate your opinion.’ TWO (Sundridge, 26 August 1800): 2pp, 4to. Maurice’s letter arrived while he was ‘on a Visit in Oxfordshire’. He thanks him for the enclosed preface, ‘which I hope will finish your Labours & afford you Leisure to attend more to your Health’. ‘It is to be lamented that the Situation at the Museum, which most of your Friends thought peculiarly adapted to you is become unpleasant to you; & I think it will deserve a little further consideration from you before you resolve upon Exchanging it, even if you were permitted. That Permission does not rest solely with the Archbishop; but if you continue in the same mind when I return to London in the Winter & have an opportunity of seeing the Archbishop, I will have some conversation with his Grace on the subject, & will communicate to him your wishes.’ THREE (Sundridge, 26 September 1800): 1p, 4to. Franked to ‘Revd Mr Maurice / British Museum / London’ from ‘Sevenoakes - August / Twenty Six. 1800 B. London’. He has returned from ‘a Visit in Hampshire’ to find ‘the five last Volumes of the Indian Antiquities which you was so obliging as to send me; & of which I beg that I may be allowed to pay the current Price’’. As Maurice has communicated his wishes ‘to the ABp & Bp of Lincoln’, Porteus will ‘not fail to converse with them on that subject when we meet’. FOUR (Sundridge, 4 September 1806): 2pp, 4to. He is sending a banker’s draft for ten guineas. ‘I have read your Elegy on Mr Pitt, & think it has great merit & is written in the true Poetical energy & ardor. To a few expressions & a few lines I have some objections’. One of these is Porteus’s use of the word ‘saviour’: ‘too strong & too sacred an expression to be applied to any human Being however great’. He goes into greater detail in explaining why it is ‘going too far’ to suggest that ‘any of the Human Race immediately after Death is appointed to ‘Minister to Heaven’s Eternal King’”. Regarding one turn of expression: ‘There are acts of Power that belong solely to the Almighty; & the last expression is so peculiarly appropriated to our blessed Lord that it is surely very improper to preidcate it of any other Person whatever.’ While he is sure that no offence was meant, he urges Maurice to ‘reconsider & remove’ all ‘ambiguity’. FIVE (Clifton, 26 August 1807, but the year apparently a mistake for 1806): 2pp, 4to. Having received a ‘pacquet by the Bristol Mail’, he laments that Maurice has not followed his advice, ‘both with respect to the Mode of Publication & the Alteration of the Passage to which I objected. - By printing the Poem at your own risque [sic] on so large & expensive a scale you will, I fear, again involve yourself in difficulties which you will not easily surmount: & by retaining the Objectionable Line you will, I am persuaded, prejudice many serious Persons against your Poem, which in other respects has considerable merit. - Indeed in looking again at the whole of the Portrait you have drawn of that truly great man whom you celebrate (& of whom I think as highly as any man can possibly do) I perceive several other expressions which appear to me objectionable - no mortal man (however great & good) should be dignified with the sacred name of the Saviour of his Country, (p.117) which should be appropriated solely to the Saviour of the World. Nor should the Almighty be represented as displaying to one of his own Creatures all his vast designs (p.122). Nor can any dead Man be the Guardian or Protector of Kingdoms & Empires. P.123. This Power belongs to God alone.’ He gives Maurice ‘full credit for not meaning any Thing improper by such expressions’, and is ‘willing to make all due allowance for the Enthusiasm of a Poet & the flights of an ardent Imagination. But still when he treads so close on hallowed Ground he must proceed with great caution & reverential Awe, & not ascribe to any human Being those properties & Powers which are the peculiar Attributes of the omnipotent Sovereign of the Universe’. He ends by stating that he is only writing to Maurice out of an interest ‘for your Credit & that of your Poem’, ‘for indeed in my present precarious state of Health, I find writing very inconvenient to me; & it is therefore now my wish that this matter may rest here, & that nothing more may be said on the Subject either on your part or mine.’