Autograph Letter Signed from the Scottish author Anne Grant to 'Mrs. Drysdale', boasting of her behaviour to 'People of the Highest Rank', and making 'perhaps the last' joke.

2pp., 12mo. 33 lines of text, written in a close, neat hand. Good, on lightly-aged paper. She begins with a five-line 'encomium', before assuring Mrs Drysdale that she is 'pretty safe': 'I have been considered By People of the Highest Rank to whom I was known merely as a private teacher &c &c of moral virtues To possess of <?> for the highest talents & the purest Virtues I have been familiar I need not say why. None of these I ever flattered. I should Consider it degrading myself & insulting them.' There follows a reference to 'that Angeli being who has been so long hovering on the brink of that eternity where her serene & happy spirit will escape from the feeble frame that has so long incumbered it'. She has received 'wonderful tidings from America'. There is a reference to her last surviving child John, who is 'at Seacliff with his Wife'. She ends 'It is odd enough that the pigeons I sent you should fly back to me with Feathers on after this long ab[s]ence. I suppose you understand my Bright wit you would be sorry [to] lose so good a Joke perhaps the last from yours | Sincerely [signed] Anne Grant'.