George Dyer, Overbury, near Tewkesbury, to [Messrs Vernor and Hood], undated [1806].1
Overbury near Tewkesbury. Dr Sir, In consequence of what you said to me ^in a^ former letter of the difficulty of reconciling my engagements with the office of Editor ^of ye Museum,^ I wrote to you some time since, reminding you, that when you proposed the undertaking to me, I informed you, I wd have ^certain^ engagements, and that you gave me to understand they need not stand in the way of the undertaking. My compliance was grounded on this concession of yours. I think proper to remind you again of this circumstance, and to inform you ^still further,^ that in consequence of what you laid down as requisites for your editor in that letter, it will be incompatible with my pursuits to continue the office, and that it will not be for the interest of either of us, that I should. The fact is, that neither will my health, nor my inquiries, permit me to be always fixed to town, and if these would, my friends would not; these ^friends^ are dispersed about the country: and in paying these visits I am complying with their requests and wishes, as well as consulting my own gratification. To speak, however, my whole mind relative to your Museum, I shall be extremely sorry, if any inconvenience or detriment should arise from the little share wch I have taken in it, and hope that will not be the case. But, indeed, I think that you require an editor, who can devote much of his time to it, more than I fear I can; and if you afford to give an editor what you promised me, he may reasonably be expected to do it. I speak the more unequivocally to you on this subject, because in some newspaper a few weeks ago, ^I read^ an advertisement, announcing an intended publication on a plan similar to yours; I know nothing further of the work; but you should consider it as a hint, that you ought to ensure an editor, who can devote much of his time to your Museum. I am far from being indifferent about it myself. It is probable you may easily obtain an editor whose principles may be better adapted to ^your Museum^ than mine; or if you think it likely, that I wd be able to procure you ^such^ an editor (and it is very likely I may) you may command me. You may assure yourself, that I will do what I shall apprehend to be most for your interest. Your offer to me was frank; and I hope there will never exist between us any thing but good will.
When I last wrote to you I wrote to the lady, who signs herself E. L., whom I
introduced to you, desiring her, as before, to forward her papers to me and
^telling her^ that I woud forward them to you: but I received no answer, nor
any papers: if she left them with you, Mr J Sharp and you have
followed your own judgement in the disposal of them: If they are kept till you
see me, I will give my opinion when I come to town. With respect to this Lady,
I have not been acquainted with her or her literary pursuits for some years:
but when I formerly was more acquainted with her, I thought very favourably of
her genius, from some early specimens, and I knew her to be seriously employed
in literary pursuits, and from what her brother said,
With respect to the other correspondents, as you seemed by yr letter
not satisfied with some of them all I can say is that with the exception of a
few pieces in the first number, and some extracts from respectable and useful
writers in the following numbers, most, if not all the pieces, I suppose, were
from your old correspondents, whom you were desirous that I should oblige. I
suppressed a few, because I did not think so favorably of them, as of some that
I did insert; and of ^some^ that I did insert I did not ^think^ very highly.
But in periodical publications something must be sacrificed to a desire of
conciliating correspondents. But a purblind, solitary man, (as I much am when
in London) engaged in many speculations of my own, possessing sentiments
With respect to one piece, which I have kept back, containing both a satirical
title and some satirical strokes against the quakers, it may be proper enough
for some person ^to insert it^ but it would not for me who approve many of the
peculiarities of the quakers & With good wishes I remain Yrs truly G. Dyer
1 Bodleian Library, MS. Montagu d. 4, f. 190. The letter is about Dyer’s being the editor of the Lady’s Monthly Museum, a magazine that began publication in 1798 and continued to 1828. In its early years it was published by the dissenting publisher Vernor and Hood, with Dyer serving as editor of the magazine c. 1806. Walter Wilson was the printer at one point and Isaac Taylor one of the engravers. These letters are when the magazine began its New Series in July 1806. That may have been when Dyer took over briefly as editor.
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