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Lot 164

SPENCE (JOSEPH)

22 November 2011, 10:30 GMT

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,625 inc. premium

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SPENCE (JOSEPH)

Autograph letter signed, to the Rev Walter Harte, Vice Principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford, describing, at considerable length, his antiquarian explorations of Naples and its environs, including Virgil's tomb ("...tis a Rotund on an octagon; something like a little Temple: It stands on ye side of the Hill, just over ye entrance to ye famous Grotto of Pausilyppo..."), and other places visited, including the Grotto of Posillipo ("...tho' they have made it very high at each opening, 'tis absolutely dark in ye middle of it; & ye most blind odd way of travel you can imagine..."), and listing all the other places visited, such as Solfatara, Pozzuoli, Baiae, the Elysian Fields and the Lake of Avernus ("...the Business only of 7 or 8 Hours; and so I can assure you that ye same Morning we were both at Heaven & Hell..."), and describing his expedition up Vesuvius, 3 pages, some wear at the edges, neat professional repairs to the edges and folds, folio, Rome, 5 June 1732

Footnotes

'YE UNCOMMON HORRORS OF YE MOUNT ITSELF': JOSEPH SPENCE ASCENDS VESUVIUS – "It took us up a Morning of itself. 'Tis very hard to get to the Top of it; but there are fellows always whose Business it is the draw you up, as it were, by their Girdles; & when you do get to ye top: clifts of it on ye farther side (when ye Smoak is wafted away by ye winds) you see a beautiful Country; on ye right, is part of the Bay of Naples; & you may look back, & have a full View of that most delicious City. This, with ye uncommon Horrors of ye Mount itself, make a mixture that strikes one in a very peculiar manner". Spence is of course best remembered for the posthumously-published Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, of Books and Men of 1820, which records conversations held with Pope and others. This letter was written while at Pope's recommendation Spence was accompanying Charles Sackville, Lord Middlesex and future Duke of Dorset, on the grand tour: his correspondent, Walter Harte, was, like Spence, a friend of Pope's. Our letter is not included in Joseph Spence: Letters from the Grand Tour, edited by Slava Kilma (1975), where other letters by him from the same time are given (see pp. 104-112).

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ARCHITECTURE - ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
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