Autograph Letter Signed ('W Massey') to unnamed correspondent, with four newspaper cuttings, an engraved portrait and a manuscript biography.

The letter, four newspaper cuttings and portrait are laid down on two quarto leaves, one of which also carries the manuscript biography. These leaves are discoloured and frayed at extremities, with several closed tears, and the cuttings are similarly damaged, but nowhere is there any loss to text. The portrait is very good, on slightly discoloured paper. The letter (12mo: 2 pp) is good, although discoloured and with small dog-ear to top right hand corner. Massey writes that he thinks 'the portrait [...] very successful' and asks for 'two or three ordinary copies', for which he will give the recipient 'a setting on Saturday or Monday'. Makes clear that he is taking the three guinea copy. The letter is a bifolium, the blank second leaf of which is laid down on a quarto leaf, which also carries two newspaper cuttings relating to Massey on the same side. Both are unattributed and undated, the one (32 cm long) begins 'Mr. MASSEY, now the Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons, is, it appears, to be Finance Minister of India.'; the other (28 cm long) begins 'Our readers may remember one memorable occasion on which Mr. MASSEY actually opposed the Government.' The second quarto leaf carries the engraved head and shoulders portrait of Massy, with one arm leaning on a table. Taken from a magazine, it measures roughly 17 x 15 cm, and is captioned 'THE RIGHT HON. W. N. MASSEY, THE NEW FINANCE MINISTER OF INDIA.' Beneath and to the right of the portrait are two cuttings: the one (29 cm) begins 'THE recently-appointed Finance Minister of India, thte Right Hon. William Nathaniel Massey, whose Portrait we engrave, was born in 1809, and married, in 1833, a daughter of the Rev. J. Orde.'; the other (8 cm) begins 'Mr. Massey is about the same age as Sir Charles Trevelyan was when he took the office, [...]'. On the reverse of the quarto-leaf is a neat fifteen-line copperplate biography, perhaps copied from a reference work.