Long Autograph Letter Signed to 'My dear John Townshend' (Henry Hart, 1791-1868, Dean of St Paul's, Poet & Writer, Historian and Ecclesiastic)

saying that he "knows not whether you have heard the cause of the exit of my family from home - we have had a most fearful fever around us and alas! in our house. Your godson Archy has struggled through after having been despaired of more than once - thank God. He is now recovering as rapidly and seemingly as completely as we could hope. My poor wife was attacked before him though not so severely as to cause alarm for her life, but... it will still require time to restore her perfectly. My second son also hardly escaped an attack, and was, and is perhaps weak, from the violent preventives necessary - of course immediately it could be done, we were ordered to remove. We have been three weeks at Richmond, and are now at Pinner - from both which places I run up in a very short time for business or duty - I am always here on Sundays. One of my smaller grievances (smaller they must be allowed to be after the harassing and painful weeks, which I have passed) is that I cannot see such friends as you during your very infrequent and brief visits to London... Where are you and how long do you stay? Is Mrs Townshend with you? You left no direction - I therefore take my chance of sending this to Mr Mainwairing. If you are staying in town do let me know - it will be shortest to direct to my brother 'The Grove, Pinner'... as I do not know what day I may be in town... My wife and Archy will not, I think, return to town (I am dissuaded by the doctor) before our usual holidays... I shall probably fix in town the latter end of this month... but hardly hope to find you then...", 4 sides 8vo., Cloisters, Westminster Abbey, 11th July no year circa In 1821 Milman was elected professor of poetry at Oxford, and in 1827 he delivered the Bampton lectures on The character and conduct of the Apostles considered as an evidence of Christianity. In 1835, Sir Robert Peel made him Rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and Canon of Westminster, and in 1849 he became Dean of St Paul's. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1864