Autograph Letter Signed ('James Dodds'), to John Hunter, the Writer of the Signet and also friend of Carlyle and Leigh Hunt.

Author: 
James Dodds (1813-1874), friend of Carlyle and Leigh Hunt, Scottish lecturer and poet.
Publication details: 
18 Abingdon Street West, 27 January 1862
£56.00
SKU: 15626

2 pages, 4to, good condition. Dodds worked in John Hunter's office and is writing at what might have been a critical point in his career that had nonetheless forced him to reconsider his present position and which process aroused 'some pullulations of ambition' that may lead to a change; he discourses at length on the indignities, depressed state and ebbing fortunes of solicitors ('...Solicitor's work, as you know well, is all of the head & at the desk; he has no power of shining & dazzling like a Counsel, who however is often only shining by the poor solicitor's light, and dazzling at his expense ... there is an amount of canvassing, of troubling friends, getting introductions to new people, darting like a spider here & there after some fly that appears...') and making reference to his upbringing and suitability for work ('...My education - self-education most of it - has not been sufficiently technical to fit me for any thing but a chair of Literature or of History...').