George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[466] feel very desolate, touches me nearly. I am old,—almost seventythree,—and the few friends of my youth and riper years, that have remained to me until now, are constantly dropping away. One has fallen this week. Another will go soon. And the rest must follow before long, whether it pleases God that I should precede them or not.

In 1819 I spent two or three days with the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey.¹ There was a brilliant party there, just at the end of the shooting-season,—the old Lord Spencer, Frere, the Jerseys, etc. One forenoon I remember that, with your brother, and a clergyman whose name I have forgotten, I walked a good deal about the grounds and park. Lord John was at home, and my recollections of him—with whom I have kept up some intercourse from time to time ever since—and of your brother are most agreeable, as they are, indeed, of the whole visit. From Lord John I had a letter yesterday, and am glad to find that, notwithstanding the contests of party and his elevation—if it be such—to the peerage, his literary tastes are still strong.

You ask me if there are, in the United States, any public libraries to which you may send the reprints of the ancient Spanish Reformers, and where they would be preserved, and would serve the purposes of literature? I answer, confidently, that there are many such. Harvard College, near Boston, and the Astor Library, New York, are among the more prominent of the number. But the one I will venture to commend to your favor is the Boston Public Library, of which I send you, by this mail, the last annual report, to show you, in part, what it is. The first portion of this report was drawn up by Mr. Everett, formerly our Minister in England, and our principal Secretary of State at home,—an accomplished scholar as well as a wise statesman. The second part was drawn up by myself, and the third by the very efficient Superintendent of the institution . . . . . I have given to it above three thousand volumes, many of them rare; and intend to give to it my Spanish and Portuguese collections, which will make as many more. If these facts, together with what you will find in the report I send, should induce you to favor us, I shall be grateful, and will insure the fulfilment of your designs and wishes, as far as it may be done anywhere. If, however, your kindness should take another direction, I shall not complain. . . . .

Yours very faithfully,

George Ticknor.