Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield, Hants,
9th April, 1839.
My Dear Watts,
I write you ten lines in the greatest bustle that ever man was in to tell you that the death of poor Sir Charles Paget turns me out of my house. This is not of necessity indeed, for I have a lease of it for some time yet unexpired, but Lady Paget sent to ask if I would let her come in again and I felt not in my heart to refuse the widow under such circumstances. I go before the first of May, but I do sincerely wish that between this and then I may have the pleasure of seeing you here. I think that you will believe me to be a sincere man; a tolerably bitter enemy as long as I think there is cause for enmity, a very pertinacious friend when I do like. From this place we go to London, or rather to Brompton, Mrs. James’s sister who is in town for the winter, having lent her her house there, for a short time. It is called the Hermitage and is nearly opposite Trevor Square, which perhaps you may know. Do not suffer yourself or Mrs. Watts to fancy that it will put us to any inconvenience to receive you here if you can manage it, as I assure you it will not. I sell all my horses by auction on the 25th and you could help to bid them up. After we quit the Hermitage, we have not the slightest idea where we shall go but there at least I trust to see you if you cannot leave your weighty employments ere then. I was delighted with your parthian shots, which were exquisitely truly aimed and though the arrows were not poisoned by your hand, the corruption of the flesh in which they have stuck, depend upon it, will produce gangrene. You were made for a reviewer: only you are honest. How was it else that I escaped even when we did not fully understand each other?
I have told the booksellers to send you a little pamphlet on the American Boundary question. It is merely a brief and unpretending summary of the early history of that bone of contention, only worth your looking into as a saving of time.
Pray let me hear from you a few words and believe me with Mrs. James’s and my own best Compliments to Mrs. Watts.
Yours ever
G. P. R. James
P. S. I am making a little collection of my works in their new edition for Mrs. Watts’s book-case and I send Richelieu with this. It is odd Bulwer should have just published a play under the same title when the third edition of mine had been announced for months. I have not seen his, but I should like to compare the two.
Alaric A. Watts Esqre