Joseph Angus, Regent’s Park College, London, to Thomas Raffles, Liverpool, undated (but from December 1857).

My dear D.r Raffles,

         I am glad to find that the M.S. has reached you safely & that you are pleased with it.  Finding that Mr Birrell was not in town at our Quarterly Meeting, I ventured to send by the Post: & I might as well have acknowledged my obligation earlier.

         I hold myself far more than repaid.  And whatever you send at any time, is [Greek phrase]. 

         I can only say that no literary autograph will come amiss.  And whenever on looking thro’ your Treasures you find a duplicate & am pleased to send it here, it shall [receive] first a grateful welcome & second an honoured home.

         The plan of lecturing on them is admirable.  I have to night a somewhat similar service: as the “Biographies of remarkable Books”; my aim being to trace the History of a few, & especially of particular copies--The Edinburgh Review, with S. Smith’s note acknowledging 100£ worth of books from the Publishers for having originated the work   Baxter’s ‘Saints Rest,’ & ‘The Pilgrim’ being among the illustrations.

         With best & affe regard

                     Yrs very sincerely

                                 Joseph Angus

Rev. D.r Raffles

Text: ENG. MS. 372, fol. 47i, Raffles Collection, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. For a detailed discussion of the Angus-Raffles Correspondence, see Timothy Whelan,  “Joseph Angus and the Use of Autograph Letters in the Library at Holford House, Regent’s Park College, London,” Baptist Quarterly 40 (2004), 455-76.

References above to Sidney Smith (1771-1845) Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral and important writer for the Edinburgh Review between 1802 and 1827; Richard Baxter (1615-91), minister at Kidderminster, 1641-60, and author  of The Saints Everlasting Rest (1650); “The Pilgrim” was a play by John Fletcher (1579-1625).