John Foster, Bourton-on-the-Water, to unnamed correspondent in London [possibly a Mr. Hill], 21 July 1823.

Bourton-on-the-Water

July 21 – 1823

My dear Sir,

        It would be of no sort of use to attempt telling where in the island this place is; but there is a London road from it, by which a person of Brentford is this morning returning on his way thither. A note put in the post-office there will instead of here, will gain a few pence against the revenue. Its object is a very slight one. I have been long expecting a Greek & English Lexicon, by Dr J. Jones, which I see by the Morning Chronicle is at last published. There will be time I presume for it ^to^ be obtained against the monthy parcel.

        Jones’s Greek & English Lexicon – 8vo. 30s published by Longman & Co. I suppose the end of this month will be the last time that I can avail myself of your friendly assistance in this way. I should have taken the liberty of doing it to a greater extent before but that other book dealings, in the costly second hand way, in the years preceding this last, left me no pence for taking that advantage. –

         I am going to wedge in a box some 80 or 90 vols here, being a part of the books belonging to a deceased sister of my wife, many of them descended from their father, including several scores of pamphlets of the earlier part of the past century, some of them apparently curious; many relating to Whitefield’s first coming on the public, including several of his own narration and defensive publications, (which, however, are doubtless included in the edit. of his works). No books, however, of any extraordinary value, and some of none at all. We are here, myself, wife, and brats, in the friendly house of a brother-in-law, a very pious and skilful physician, whose advice I wished to have the benefit of. He is quite in favour of that excursion to Haverford, so that I am afraid I shall have some difficulty to practice the requisite self-denial to decline it. He protests in the most decided terms against any hard mental labour, for pulpits or any thing else, till the case shall be mended with me in point of health. He seriously avers that much of this, in the present state of disorder, would be likely to render the case irretrievable. It is a wretched affection of the stomach, not organic, but in the way of extreme debility. He declares against even the residue of the lectures, for the year. But that service I must endeavour to go through as well as I can. Any other preaching, for the present, that can possibly be avoided, he protests against. But I am, positively engaged for a composition job or two, which I dread to think of. –

         But the traveller is taking his hasty morning coffee, and on the very point of being off. – I shall return to Stapleton before the end of the week, leaving, I believe wife & girls behind. Kindest regards to Mrs Hill and the three young people.

                     Yours ever

                                             J. Foster

Do not fail to get one hearing, if you can, of that Irving who is making such a noise in your town.

Address: none

Text: John Foster Folder, RG 1107, American Baptist Historical Society Archives, Atlanta.