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[June 18491]

MS location unknown. This fragment printed in Coleridge, Life 159

I send a Château de Melville, and if you do not stick fast in it I should be amused to hear if you can identify the people with the Magnanimous Mohuns2 in their youth, that is to say, tell which is the origin of which. I have a most funny series of MSS. connecting them, which my executors may hereafter publish as a curious piece of literary history- I don’t mean that I keep them for the purpose, only they are so comical that I cannot find it in my heart to throw them away, such absurd pieces of advice as the old people do give! and the pathetic parts so ridiculous.3 You will meet with the origin of Ben and Philip there.4 What exquisite weather! Wish for it to last till after St. Peter, when we are to have a grand picnicking with all the Hursley public at Merdon Castle, fifteen or sixteen Winchester boys to go home in an omnibus. I think I deserve a good long letter as a reward for this one. Don’t you long to see Prince Rupert?

1The reference to St. Peter’s Day (30 June) suggests the month, and the reference to Prince Rupert the year.
2The point is that the Mohun family in Scenes and Characters (1847) are descendants of the characters in Le Château de Melville (1838).
3CRC’s note: ‘not in existence’.
4The fourth story in ‘Langley School (1850), which originally appeared in the Magazine for the Young (December 1846).
Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/2963/to-mary-anne-dyson-4

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