[Thomas Goff Lupton, engraver.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Thomas Lupton') to 'Mrs. Osborne', the mother of his godson, denouncing his trade of engraver as 'a painful health destroying profession [...] and little short of wilful murder'.

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. An excellent and surprising letter. Lupton begins by saying that he is happy to comply with Mrs Osbornes request for 'two of my Cartes, one for yourself, the other for your Boy! My God Son: who I am glad to know is so well placed in the world. O! how I envy the young One's, who have such a healthful locomotive life before them.' An extraordinary denunciation of his lifelong profession follows: 'Pray never make engravers of human's (Painter make themselves) | Now, that I have passed thro the ordeal, I think Engraving a painful health destroying profession, and (I think it) little short of wilful murder to attempt to make an Engraver.' Mrs Osborne's son is on the SS Kurrachee, and Lupton asks her to send a message to him via the chief officer: 'I hope that I may live to see him Commander'. He sends regards to 'Emma' and 'Maria'. His wife Mary Anne will send 'a Carte as soon as she recievs them from the Photog[raphe]r. as the first lot are all dispersed'. He concludes: 'Having little or nothing to do now, I often & often thhink of early gone by days, & wonder how all you once little dear things have become Mothers & Fathers and Grand do. & Grand do. and I have become so old [last two words underlined twice]'.