Eliza Fenwick, London, to Crabb Robinson, Friday evening, undated [26 January 1808].1
Friday Evening Dear Sir It is wholly out of my power to express the affectionate gratitude I feel for the services you have rendered ^me^.2 The sympathy which caused such efforts for my deliverance adds an indescribable value to the benefit – In such a case the pleasure the giver feels he bestows with the gift, & the obligation is not a burthensome weight but a precious remembrance. A circumstance has occur’d which I am anxious to give you the earliest notice of both because you will rejoice in the advantage it tenders to me, & because it compells me to employ your assistance in another way than that I before proposed. My daughter has had a beneficial engagement tendered to her. The Managers of the Belfast Theatre are both in London, they have seen her, highly approve her & have offered an engagement for one year certain at two guineas pr week & three benefits in the year.3 At the end of the twelvemonth I should be glad to know that you do not disapprove my plan. I have troubled you with a long story but you must forgive that & believe me Dear Sir yrs gratefully E Fenwick
I beg to be remembered to Mrs Collier5 & family. I never shall forget the kind interest she seemed to take in my concerns. I have written in haste & almost in the dark. Tuesday Morning – To my astonishment I have just found among some papers laid aside this letter which I thought I had sent to the post last Friday evening. Excuse me. I am in the greatest confusion for these Managers hurry us exceedingly, so much that I fear we shall not be able to go by sea as I thought of, & the cost of the land journey appalls6 me. I wish much to see you, & am still at Skinner Street7 till 4 oclock. I was with Miss Hays on Sunday. She rejoices in Eliza’s prospect & thinks I am right in going with her Dear Sir, Call on me as soon as you can
Address: Henry Robinson Esqr | at Mr Colliers | Hatton Garden Postmark: 26 January [1808].
1 Crabb Robinson Archive, DWL/HCR/5/4/116, Dr. Williams's Library, London; not in Wedd, Fate of the Fenwicks. On the address page Crabb Robinson has written the following: "Mrs Fenwick abot her Daur’s going on the stage I had collected for her £25. NB: Mrs F: a most excellent woman of considerable talent. Unhappily married to a wild Irishman of a good heart but no <-> conduct he reduced her to poverty from affluence – After living in great poverty as an authoress, she went to 2 Reference is to the monetary gift she had received through the efforts of Hays and Crabb Robinson (see note 1 above). 3 One of several acting engagements young Eliza Fenwick would fulfill before her move to Barbados in late 1811. 4 John Philpot Curran, Irish politician (see his entry in Biographical Index). 5 Mrs. John Dyer Collier, in whose home in Hatton Garden Crabb Robinson resided for many years after his return from Germany in 1805. 6 appals] MS 7 The location of the Godwins' Juvenile Library.
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