Autograph Letter Signed from the eighteenth-century satirist and caricaturist John Collier ['Tim Bobbin'] to his 'Dear Cousin', discussing his health and family matters.

2 pp, 4to. Forty lines. Text clear and complete. Good, on lightly-aged paper, with minor traces of mount adhering to blank areas of the reverse of the leaf. A playful, jaunty letter containing valuable personal and family information. He was pleased to learn from 'Mr Shaw of Lees (who desires his complimts)' that the recipient is 'not only in the land of the living, but in the business of the Excise, and still raps at the ends of Barrels, and takes dimensions of bungs & diameters as usual'. Asks after his wife, and 'how long you had been a Cheshire man'. If the recipient wanted to know if Collier 'still lugg'd my old earthly tabernacle about with me', he could have 'sent a letter directed to John Collier, or to Tim Bobbin in this world or another, you had most certainly had an ansr. tho; it had been stuff'd as full of queries as K. George's ministry is full of blunders, or my head of maggots.' 'To prevent troublesome queries on your part it may be proper to tell you that I am now in my 70th year that most of my teeth have deserted their stations, tho' my greater bones remain in statu quo; [...] That my hand trembles I need not tell you, as every letter in this epistle cryes aloud - But whether this comes by drinking Punch, or by times nibbling at me, authors are not agreed: [...] My wife, my Duchess or crook'd rib (choose you which is about 14 years younger than I, but much fatter - We have had 4 sons & 5 daughters 3 of each living; all well'. Continues with a little more family history, and a postscript enquring after 'Coz Billy'. With typed transcript.