[Clare’s Appendix no. 5]
There is £400 in the Funds or at least was before it was put in said to be in the joint Names of Taylor and Hessey I know nothing more
I have had no settlement with Taylor and Hessey yet for neither of the Volumnes and have gone on in a very foolish manner I am sorry now tho its not too late — one of the best Counselors tells me to ‘put no confidence in Man’ and I believe Expirience is reminding me that wroldly faith is of less worth then nothing but Experience sells her advice very dear and makes every body pay for it. I understand that 7000 of the Poems on Rural Life and Scenery and the Village Minstrel was struck off up to the 4 Edition of the one and 2nd Edition of the other 5000 of the first and 2000 of the Second I was to have half the profits but I wish I had sold them out and out as others do and then I shoud have had the principal out at use and the interest to live on and now I get nothing as it were
Edward Drury has most of my M.S.S. and Taylor and Hessey has copys and origionals of them all I have got few or none myself this hurts me very often no doubt they will do the right thing and yet there is many doubts they may not
I will have the Shepherds Calender out directly — I will set down before I forget it a Memorandum to say that I desire Mrs Emmerson will do just as she pleases with any M.S.S. of mine which she may have in her possesion to publish them or not as she chuses but I desire that any living names mentiond in my letters may be filled up by * * * and all objectionable passages ommited a wish which I hope will be invariably complied with by all I also intend to make Mr Emmerson one of the Executors in my new will
I wish to lye on the North side the Church yard just about the middle of the ground were the Morning and Evening Sun can linger the longest on my Grave I wish to have a rough unhewn stone somthing in the form of a mile Stone so that the playing boys may not break it in their heedless pastimes with nothing more on it then this Inscription. I desire that no date be inserted there on as I wish it to live or dye with my poems and other writings which if they have merit with posterity it will and if they have not it is not worth preserving all is
October
8th
1824
“Vanity of vanity’s Vanity.”
I once signd an agreement made out by Drury a long while back but I was repentant afterwards of it and it was burnt I have made nor signd none since and never will Drurys was to allow me a quarters profit bravo I was drunk at the time and therefore heeded not the bargain till I heard about it from my lost Friend Octavius Gilchrist the agreement of Drury was said to be burnt and I know nothing further but this I know that there is no other agreement in existance beyond what I have wishd in my last will of Sep 1824
[N15, 122-3]
1 Vanity of vanity’s: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12:8.