| Description | "Reminds me of my promise to send my Lady of Pleasure some medals. Mrs. Vere wishes to hear my account of the visit of the Bishop of Bangor. Conversation with Folgham relative to copying-machines." Dear Sir, Your Lady of Pleasure, being too shy to address you herself, has commission’d me to remind you of your promise of sending her a medal of Lord Howe, which she is impatient to receive. She has been exercising her pruning knife and likes it prodigiously. By an inclosure I send your father by this conveyance, you may see how pleased the bishop and his lady were with their visit to Soho. I hope you liked their company’s, and Mrs. Vere begs you will send her your account of the visit—but do it at your leisure, for I think your father and you must have plenty of business to do, now that you have lost so many hands. Having occasion to look into Folgham’s shop one day since my return to London, he shew’d Mrs. Vere on of his copying machines, saying he beat Watt & Co. all to pieces, and that he had had an order for eighteen the day previous, and cou’d sell a vast many of yours, if you wou’d make an allowance to the trade, but that you sold too cheap, for a gentleman wou’d as [soon] have given nine guineas as seven; in short, I suppose you seel them too cheap for his to find any sale, notwithstanding his prodigious orders. I was not ignorant that he had been making some, and knew that you was acquainted with it, and being in a hurry I did not even look at his so much preferable a machine to yours. I hope you have got as many bricklayers as you wanted, and that the buildings at the French Walls go on fast; and most heartily wishing you success in this as well as all other undertakings, I remain, dear sir, sincerely yours, C. Matthews [Edited transcript.] |