Autograph Letter Signed from the geologist and reformer Leonard Horner to his daughter Lady Mary Lyell, widow of Sir Charles Lyell, quoting letters from Thomas Longman and the son of Macvey Napier about an Edinburgh Review article on W. H. Prescott.

2pp., 12mo. Closely and neatly written. 45 lines of text. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. An interesting item, pulling together several strands of nineteenth-century Anglo-American literature. Having received a letter from his daughter telling him that George Ticknor (1791-1871) of Boston was 'desirous of knowing who was the author of an article in the Edinburgh Review on a work of Mr Prescott', Horner has written to the publisher 'Mr Longman as the most likely person to give or get me the information'. He gives a six-line quotation from Longman's reply of 25 July 1860, and then a fifteen-line quotation from a letter to Longman from the son of Macvey Napier, editor of the Edinburgh Review, which reveals that the article was written by 'Mr Phillipps, a son of Mr S. M. Phillipps, [Samuel March Phillipps (1780-1862)] who was long Under Secretary in the Home Department'. Napier 'cannot imagine that he would object to be known as the writer, but if you are acquainted with him, perhaps it may be as well to ask him. From letters in my possession I find, that Mr Everett, then the American Ambassador, applied to my Father on behalf of Mr Prescott to know the name of the writer off the article, which I have no doubt was communicated to Mr Prescott. He expressed himself greatly pleased with the article in a letter he wrote to my father on the occasion, in which he corrects the mistake made in the E. R. as to his blindness'. Horner has been informed by the Home Office that Phillipps senior, whom he knows well, now lives at Torquay, and that his son 'several years ago went as a writer to India'. He has written to Phillipps senior, but has received no reply. A five-line postscript has been deleted, but is still legible; it concerns personal matters. In a footnote Horner mentions Mary's sister Susan.