430. W. W. to FREDERIC MANSEL REYNOLDS

• Address: F. M. Reynolds Esq^re, 48 Warren ^St, Fitzroy Square, London
• Postmark: 12 May 1829.
• Stamp: Kendal Penny Post.
• MS. W.L.
• LY i. 378.

[In Dora W's hand]

• Rydal Mount
• Saturday May 9^th, '29

My dear Sir,

I have been so many months looking for a letter from you that I begin to fear you must have been seriously ill. I wrote to you¹ to acknowledge the receipt of the two 'Keepsakes' (mine and M^r S's) and added that my contributions for the next year were waiting your commands. I wrote as you might think in somewhat of a splenetic humor having had a serious accident and other causes of uneasiness which have since been aggravated by a dangerous illness of my Sister's, Miss Wordsworth, and a two months inflammation of my own eyes under which I am still suffering having tried your remedy² in vain; the season has here been very unhealthy, severe colds—rheumatisms and inflammatory attacks—and I cannot but hope that the persevering sharp east wind brought on the first inflammation in my lids and was also the cause of two succeeding ones, from which the eye itself has suffer'd much—three days ago I called in our medical atten^t and he tells me that there is a small speck on the Cornea, and he has order'd Poultices to hasten the bursting of the Abscess on the lid—if you have any thing to propose for the benefit of my case pray write without delay.

As you did not seem inclined to make use of 4 of my Sonnets I begged in my last that they might be returned to me; if they have been mislaid dont let that trouble you as it is of little or no con sequence, except for one line in the 'Roman Antiquities'—of which I have lost the correction. I had two days ago a request for Con-pg 75tributions to the 'Offering',¹ a new Annual, but I consider myself bound to you upon the same terms as last year, and I am certain upon second thoughts you will acknowledge the reasonableness of my objecting to the Principle of being called upon (as in your last) to supply by new contributions the place of my own rejected articles—a little in this way might be done by an arrangement between ourselves as friends, but to admit the rule with you or anyone in the abstract character of Editor, is what I cannot consent to on the grounds before stated.

I still feel unable to give you any advice or opinion about the Articles in the 'Keepsake'—pray let me hear from you as I am really anxious to know how you and your family are; make my kind regards to your Mother and Brother and my Comp^ts to M^r and M^rs Heath. I should not exclude you Father² from the expression of my good wishes if I could take the liberty. Your good Friend my Sister is in Leicestershire where her dangerous illness seized her and M^rs W. has been with her above a month, and is expected home on Wednesday.

The weather for the last two or three days has been delightful and I hope when the poulticing is over that my inflamed eye will recover under its genial influence.

[signature cut off]