Samuel Palmer, Sr., 2 Silver Street, Aylesbury, to his son, William Palmer, British Museum, [postmarked 17 August 1839]. 

Dear William,

         I begin near the top of the sheet, lest I should have more to write than I at present anticipate. I rejoice much that Mary has been so highly favoured & that mother & infant are in such favourable circumstances; may they continue, & may the two & a half promote your happiness. I am glad to hear that Emma is at Maidstone & I wish she may be taught straw platting immediately if old enough; I often think the children of the poor have one great advantage over those in better circumstances, that in early life they earn a little money. “In all labour there is profit.” I do not apply the word poor to those with whom Emma [William Palmer's adopted child] is, but I have used it for the sake of the idea of early pecuniary employment. It is very pleasing to hear that you are fascinated with E. T. P.  “Marcus has left Anon”: wonders never cease! Tidings about the ice-bergs are I suppose from the arctic circle & not from the Antarctic, for the south pole is an almost unexplored water-region. [Copy: Samuel Wm Arrodale Palmer] [this is written in another hand.]. The first & last I can make out, but the middle I must guess at. Wen Avarsdale; why not Chiellimsguffinocaderolearnycavenocadiganmacframe.  I was going to say, names are unimportant; but when I call to mind that in primitive times they were indicative of facts & circumstances, they may be very interesting. Mr Goddard’s aloetic-mantic pills are very useful; I very seldom feel the vertigo. Mr Davis, snuff-maker, here was so pleased with the London Martinique, that he has made some from mine. He says, the shining particles, are not ground glass, but something THEY put in to flavor it.  [A chart has been added about the North Pole, Equator, and South Pole on the left hand side of the page. Also the following has been added: A degree is 60 Geographical miles; 69 ½ measured miles.  X England. By this you will see how much nearer we are to the Arctic circle than to the Antarctic circle.].

         Let your reading be for the acquisition of that knowledge which is substantial, & not for amusement. The tropics are the two points which, when the sun reaches either, he returns to the other. Cancer is the summer solstitial point, & Capricorn is the winter solstitial point. For though the earth moves round the sun (they say); it is usual to speak of the sun as the traveler. If the northern lights are reflected from ice, there would be southern lights, because the south pole is equally cold with the north pole. I am uncommonly glad that the Penny-postage Bill has passed the Lords, as that now it may be contemplated as accomplished. In Tate’s Tait’s capital Magazine for August, there are the following remarks; “What shall we say of the state of a country, claiming to possess a representative Constitution, where the communication of the citizens by the Post, having most unwisely & unjustly been made a source of public revenue, & the people having at last perceived the necessity of redressing an abuse which ought never to have been tolerated, acquiescing upon compulsion, is made the cause of extravagant laudation of the Ministry! How gracious & bountiful, not openly to oppose the will of the nation to set its correspondence free, upon whatever other interest the presumed deficit of revenue – which the people must make good – should be shifted! This, however, we consider a measure of such invaluable such unimaginable advantage, that it might of itself redeem an otherwise abortive Session, had it sprung spontaneously from the Government, instead of having been forced upon it. It will do more for education, for the instruction of the people, the spread of knowledge, & the promotion of good morals, than all the parliamentary grants that can be placed in the jobbing hands of the Whigs should they wriggle & see-saw on in office much longer than their friends ^dare^ anticipate.” For cheapness, information & considerable ability, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 1/- surpasses all I have seen. Super-royal 8 vo, paper 10 ¼ by 6 ½ inches, 68 pages.

“It is generally believed that, beyond a certain distance from the equator the temperature of the southern is lower (colder) than that of the northern hemisphere. The coldness of the southern hemisphere has frequently been attributed to a circumstance quite inadequate to explain it, namely, that of the sun being a short time, by 7 ¾ days, on the south than on the north side of the equator. A much greater influence than we can assign to this cause must be ascribed to the very large proportion which the ocean bears to the land of the southern hemisphere, in consequence of which its climate differs from that of the northern, in the same way as an insular climate differs from a continental one.” Physical Geography. 33. Useful Knowledge Society.  

It seems that Samuel will be almost or quite 2 years away; what a vast advantage in his profession; possibly he will get so many commissions that he will be able to employ you in some inferior parts. Young Gibbs of this town, only 19, had a cold, neglected it & died in a few days of a brain fever. How uncertain is life! How important to live by faith!

         “All nature tells us of the indispensable need which all have each of the other. The divine precept of mutual aid, of self-devotion, & of Love, is every moment recalled to us by what we behold around us. When the time is come for the swallows to seek in another country the food which the Heavenly Father has there prepared for them, they assemble; & without again dispersing, the aerial voyagers towards the shores where they will repose in peace & abundance. Alone, what would become of each one of them? Not one could escape the perils of the journey; but united, they resist the winds; the tired or feeble wing rests on a wing. Less frail. Poor, little, gentle creatures, which the last spring saw hatched, the youngest sheltered by the older, reach, under their protection, the end of their voyage, & on the distant shore to which Providence has conducted them beyond the seas, dream of their native rest, & those first joys, mysterious & unspeakable, which God has planted for all tribes of being at the gate of life.”

         It is probable I shall have the pleasure of seeing you about the 9th of September. Possibly you have a large stock of Eliza Cook; -- I have wanted the Mil. Harbinger. Publications in London with wood-cuts seem to be cheaper than ever. If the laboring classes had more leisure than they have they might read & get knowledge, but is there not in human nature a physical [paper torn] ing? I have read somewhere of the famous John Locke, that the last two years [paper torn] the Holy Scriptures only. Perhaps men of extensive reading, when they are old, [paper torn] former ardour. Beverley has very lately published (by Dinnis 1/6) the first [edition] of “The Heresy of a Human Priesthood.” A large quantity of miscellaneous [material] levelled against a paid ministry. It is very able & will cause gnashing of teeth. [One] wonders that the Church of England does not suppress it by the strong hand of the [paper torn] Dr Lee’s Astronomer, at Hartwell, 2 miles off, at 3 oclock A. M. last Monday was looking at [paper torn] same day, aged 63. He had a very good salary. You did not say why Mr [paper torn] I come you will tell me; you will have a budget of news. Give my love to Mrs P and children.

                                 I remain

                                             Dear William

                                                         your affectionate Father

                                                                     Samuel Palmer.

2 Silver Street

Aylesbury.

I question whether any one here believes Mark 16.16. Acts 2:38 Acts 22.16. I Peter 3.20. John 3:5. As Samuel is full of the succession of the Episcopalian Clergymen to the Apostles, he may be advised to buy Powell’s Essay on Apostolical Succession. 4/-  Powell is a Wesleyan Minister. The Reviews extol it very highly. “Its range & research invest it with a completeness which renders it gigantic in power.” “With a steadfast will, few obstacles are insurmountable. There is a great power in the consciousness of duty.” Temperance-meetings are numerous here; there will be one this evening in the Town Hall. Dr Lee of Hartwell in the chair; possibly the 8th this year. Mr Hart, an able speaker, advocated the cause in the Market place lately; a Ranter opposed him & triumphantly turned round a porter pot which was loudly cheered as a home stroke. The Ranter was half seas over.

[The temperance movement increased considerably at this time through the work Jabez Burns, the General Baptist minister in whose congregation in Church Street, Marylebone, London, Palmer had worshiped during the 1830s.]

Text: MS 134-2000, Linnell Archive, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Not in Linnell, Letters. The manuscript from which the above letter has been transcribed is a copy; it is not in Palmer, Sr.’s, hand.

Reference above to R. M. Beverley's The Heresy of a Human Priesthood, traced in Letters on the Present State of the Visible Church of Christ, addressed to John Angell James, Minister of the Gospel, in Birmingham (London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. . . . and J. Dinnis, Paternoster-Row, 1839).  Beverley was a member of the Plymouth Brethren and argued not only against Anglican and Papist notions of the apostolic priesthood but also against the Dissenters who believed in an educated priesthood set apart from the rest of the congregation; thus the division between “clergy” and “laity.”  Also to Thomas Powell's An Essay on Apostolical Succession; Being a Defence of a Genuine Protestant Ministry, against the Exclusive and Intolerant Schemes of Papists and High Churchmen (London: G. Lane & P. P. Sandford), 1842. Powell was a Methodist minister.