Approximately 150 pages. Foolscap, half roan, marbled boards, spine worn and boards detached. The first section to page 75 is dated 16 October 1851.

The piece of greatest interest in the notebook is an account of the origins of Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrims (pages 127-137). Headed"Stothard's opinion of Beauty," it discusses Stothard's aesthetics, his initial lack of popularity, the origins of painting, the story of the engraving, Cromek's financial dealings with Stothard and Stothard's letter to Mrs Cromek after her husband's death. Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrims owe their existence to the late Mr Cromek...I first saw the picture at his house, soon after it had returned from Liverpool and Manchester, and other large towns, where it had been exhibited...The celebrated Schiavonetti commenced the engraving of it. He proceeded as far as the sketching, which as all the drawing in this plate depends on it, was a happy circumstance. Stothard spoke in the highest terms of that etching; the Italian artist had preserved all the spirit of the original; but he did not live to go beyond this delicate and introductory part of the task...the plate was beautifully finished by Heath; it became a universal favourite; while the fame of Stothard spread rapidly throughout the country. The engraving was brought out by subscription, it had altogether the most extensive sale of anything of kind published within the last hundred years; and the picture itself, which ultimately was productive of such golden profit, and in so many ways, was sold (so it has been stated in a letter by Stothard) by Mr Cromek for three hundred pounds, to the late Mr Hart Davis, of Bath; but Mr Alfred Stothard says the sum paid for it by the latter was five hundred pounds." Much detail follows relating to a dispute between Stothard's son and Cromek about how much RHC paid for the original. Alfred Stothard states that is was only £60. THC quotes a long letter from Stothard mentioning Mrs Cromek's sale of Blair's Grave for £130 and the finances surrounding The Pilgrimage. THC concludes saying that his father died in very narrow circumstances and that his widow was not in a position to pay Stothard as much as she would have liked.

The volume also contains extensive extracts for works on subjects including the Scriptures, Hebrew character, the Apocalypse ("from the Catholic version of the New Testament. Rheims. 1582"), a conversation between Edmund Burke and Dr. Gibson in 1790, other religious tracts and histories including"Dr. Pusey's perversions of the Spiritual Combat" (THC became a convert to Roman Catholicism in 1836.)

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Contemporary half morocco, all edges gilt. Quarto. Circa 200 pages. Preface dated"Wakefield, 23 December 1864." Spine and covers rubbed. An unpublished manuscript account by Thomas Hartley Cromek of the life of his father, Robert Hartley Cromek (1770 - 1812). Written in two different styles of hand-writing, the manuscript has been carefully compiled and neatly laid-out and is evidently the result of considerable first-hand research, the aim throughout being to vindicate his much maligned father. Based in part on an anonymous Biographical Sketch that appeared in 1813 and other printed sources, and on conversations with friends and relatives, the main source for the information is based on the considerable unpublished correspondence to or by R.H. Cromek which T.H. Cromek gathered together. These letters (many of the originals in volume two below) served him as the basis of his narrative around which he wrote linking passages and comment. T.H. Cromek's approach was to deal with events chronologically rather than by subject. In the following catalogue summary events have been grouped together to make a clearer narrative.

A frontispiece of a fine pencil drawing of R.H. Cromek by his son T.H. Cromek after the original by Flaxman.

Preface dated Wakefield 23 December 1864 in which T.H. Cromek outlines his sources and sets out the scope of his work and thanks those who have helped (such as John Pye and Jane and Isabella Bewick). He opens his remarks with the statement,"The following pages are written as a tribute of respect for the memory of my father. I have no personal recollection of him; as his death occurred soon after I had entered upon my second year." The inclusion of family letters"are characteristic of an affectionate son, husband and parent; and they contain records of persons and facts, which will, I hope, interest many of the readers of these pages."

Biographical account of Robert Cromek's early days, his training as an engraver, his marriage to Elizabeth Hartley Charge of Wakefield, the birth of his first child, Maria Montgomery (her godfather was the Sheffield poet James Montgomery), his love of literature ("His collection of books, chiefly poetical, though very small, was one of the most elegant ever formed"), his first commercial engravings, his circle of friends including Godwin, Thomas Campbell, William Hayley, Richard Cumberland and Flaxman. Later in the narrative THC states that he managed to obtain much information about his father from Elizabeth Charge, his mother's daughter by her first marriage. On her visit to London in 1809 she found William Ford the bookseller boarding at the house. Richard Cumberland, the poet, was also"an inmate of their house." THC notes that Ford the bookseller was his godfather.

Blair's Grave:"The first instance in which he [RHC] displayed an union of his literary, with his professional taste, was in an edition of Blair's poem The Grave, with designs by that artist of singular genius, - William Blake, etched by Schiavonetti. The work was nearly complete when Blake advertised for publication, at the same time...a rival engraving of the Canterbury Pilgrims..."

Copied here is the full text of the famous letter from RHC to Blake of May 1807:"I indent here a letter from my father to Blake, which the late Mr. Allan Cunningham told me (in 1833) he regretted not having seen until after his"Life of Blake" was finished. It has since been printed, from a copy with Mr. Cunningham made from the original which I lent to him. Blake was, no doubt, a difficult man to deal with: hence the severity of the style in which my father addressed him."

Later THC transcribes his father's letter to Bewick concerning the distribution in Newcastle by Bewick of Blair's Grave dated 13 August 1808 (see Bewick volume, volume four below, for the original), adding in red the additional words that Bewick wrote in the account of copies sold. THC adds the following information:"Note. The original design for the frontispiece, still in my possession, was suppressed, and one much finer substituted. It is a pen outline, slightly shaded with Indian ink, and blue, & represents a soul rising from the tomb, on which Blake has written, very neatly, [the] title.

" Stothard's The Pilgrimage to Canterbury. Early in the narrative THC deals with the controversy over who, Blake or his father, first thought of such an engraving."It was during my father's visit to Yorkshire, about the time of his marriage, that he was under the necessity of passing a few hours in Halifax...to wile [sic] away the time he resorted to books...and picked up, in a bookseller's shop, a copy of Chaucer...he was so struck with the picturesque description of the Pilgrims that he conceived the ideas of embodying the whole procession in a picture. On his return to London he immediately suggested the design to Mr. Stothard..." Giving further details, THC endeavours to show that the story that he robbed Blake of the idea could not be correct.

THC describes the tours his father made with Stothard's picture to gain subscriptions for both that engraving and for Blair's Grave. These took him to Liverpool where the picture was seen"by the late William Carey, who was so much struck with its merits and beauties, that he prolonged his stay there, on purpose to write his very able"Critique" on the picture [Critical Description of the Procession of Chaucer's Pilgrimage to Canterbury Painted by T. Stothard, 1808]." (THC also transcribes a letter from Carey to Stothard on the subject of the picture). Another city visited was Manchester. These journeys were not without their perils to Stothard's picture. THC relates how his mother told him that in Manchester it was discovered that the picture had been damaged in the coach:"a crack appeared at one end, which, it was thought, might extend the whole length." A carpenter was summoned, who proceeded to split the panel in two to the consternation of RHC:"My feelings on his occasion," said Mr. Cromek to a friend,"can hardly be described: it was like a shock from electricity through my whole frame."

A trip to Edinburgh was to prove fruitful for Cromek for not only did he succeed in gathering subscribers, but he also came upon material which would become another publication. After transcribing a letter from RHC to his wife (original in volume two), THC writes that RHC decided to prolong his stay in Scotland"since his enthusiastic admiration of Burns induced him to make a tour for the purpose of collecting for his private gratification, such fugitive pieces as that great poet had scattered among the lowly, though romantic haunts of his infant genius." THC then quotes from William Roscoe's published account of the printing of the Reliques with its attendant difficulties. THC also includes a transcription of a letter (with RHC's answer) from the Earl of Buchan complaining about the failure to return a drawing of Meg Tannoch which he had been loaned for use in the Reliques. The Earl of Buchan also complains about RHC's failure to have lithographed an original letter from Burns to Buchan which he had been lent.

The Reliques of Burns (1808). In a gloss to the letter RHC wrote to his sister Ann dated August 7th 1809 (see volume two below), THC writes that at one time his father thought of engaging Stothard to make drawings for an illustrated edition of Burns's Works, but which was never brought out:"I have always been inclined to consider this was the project that he submitted to the late Thomas Hope in March of the following year, and which that gentleman discussed in a letter to my father, which I have transcribed."

After transcribing the Hope letter, THC writes that he had seen the portraits discussed in the Hope letter in the years 1833-43:"They were all very highly finished pencil drawings, the heads being about 2 and 1/2 inches long; and at those periods, they were in the possession of a very near relative of my father's, between whom and my mother an estrangement of many years had existed. These drawings, and various other things belonging to my father, were withdrawn from his widow; and thus I had been deprived, most unjustly, of what was mine by inheritance." After an act of reconciliation, THC writes that he managed to retrieve some of his father's drawings and engravings from the relative, but not the portraits, which were still missing.

THC goes on in the same passage to write of RHC's trip to see Robert Burns's widow, Jean, where she gave him the poet's annotated copy of Milton's work given to her husband by Lord Monboddo. THC writes:"These valuable books I have long had in my safe keeping..."Comus" and"Lycidas" have a great number of passage marked by the poet."

Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song (1810). THC gives an account of RHC's and Allan Cunningham's search for material:"During this tour he culled many other wild flowers of the lowlands: these he put together in the most tasteful manner...Mr. Allan Cunningham, who was his agreeable companion and guide through these districts, and who assisted him in distinguishing and gathering these flowers...happily described my father's qualification for the task he had undertaken."

Transcriptions of letters in volume two on the Nithsdale and Galloway Song by Allan Cunningham, James Gray, Dr. Robert Anderson, Lord Woodhouselee and William Roscoe, etc., with an account of their publishing. In a later note (page 116) THC writes,"I am well aware that the authenticity of the Nithsdale Ballads was denied by Bishop Percy, Walter Scott...and, also, that after a lapse of some seven years after my Father's death, Allan Cunningham announced himself the author of them." THC goes to defend his father against the charges that he too was aware of the deceit:"Many years later (in 1847) Mr. Peter Cunningham wrote an introduction to a small volume of his father's Songs and Poems, in which he has printed nine letters from Cromek to Allan Cunningham on the subject of the Nithsdale Ballads..." According to THC, various inferences made by Peter Cunningham imply that his father"had connived to impose upon the Public." After defending his father, THC concludes,"I pass over in contemptuous silence, some of the remarks and anecdotes contained in the Preface to Mr. P.C.'s volume, and which he has related in a spirit of uncharitableness, at least, to my father's memory and his honesty of character, attempting to support his views by an endeavour to fix the stigma of positive theft on him." - the last a reference to a letter of Ben Jonson shown to Cromek by Walter Scott and its subsequent disappearance.

Transcription of a lengthy article by RHC on Schiavonetti published in the Examiner, July 1st 1810. THC adds an anecdote related by his father in The Reliques of Burns on the degraded taste prevalent in engraving at the time wherein booksellers would get engravers to alter existing blocks into subjects they were never intended to be. As an example, THC recounts how a certain bookseller got an engraver to alter a plate of the naturalist Buffon contemplating various animals into Daniel in the Lion's Den.

In a passage on the engraving of The Canterbury Pilgrims after Schiavonetti's death. THC writes,"I have not been able to ascertain how long Bromley worked upon the Plate, nor wherefore it was subsequently placed in the hands of James Heath to be finished. Two months after Schiavonetti's death the etching received a beautiful tablet designed by Stothard, and engraved by Bromley, describing it as"Schiavonetti's last great work." Referring to the original receipt for work done on the plate (see volume two), THC writes,"There was an interval of more than three months between the completion of the etching, and the work being resumed; for a memorandum by my father...states that the Plate was resumed by Mr. Engleheart, on the 20th of Sept. 1810, and that he worked upon it till December 31st."

Health:"Towards the close of Autumn 1810, he [RHC] felt the approaches of a consumption, slow in its first progress, and unalarming. He retired for a while to his native air, but the disorder was too deeply seated to be dispelled by the change." In July 1811 RHC accompanied by his daughter set out to Wakefield in an attempt to regain his strength. But he returned to London three months later"worn out by slow-wasting illness." THC recounts the decline of the invalid in detail:"During his last illness, at his house in Newman Street, many friends came to soothe the sufferings, mental and bodily, which exhausted him." The end came on 14 March 1812:"he calmly yielded up his spirit, and without a struggle, expired in the forty-first year of his age....Requiescat in pace!"

After transcribing some of the financial receipts contained in volume two, THC adds a list of engravings delivered by RHC for the month of November 1809, some to booksellers, others as presents to friends such as Stothard, Hoppner, Fuseli and Roscoe. Transcribed from RHC's notebook.

Transcription of a lengthy letter THC wrote to Mrs. Bray in 1854 on publication of her Memoirs of Thomas Stothard, R.A. THC considers that she misrepresented the facts relating to payment for the engraving of The Pilgrimage to Canterbury and wanted to set the record straight. With supporting evidence, i.e. from his father's receipts for the work, THC point by point demolishes her case. After the transcription THC adds the note,"that the price paid by my father to Mr. Stothard for the picture was Sixty Guineas: this I have repeatedly heard from my late mother...That my father would have paid the extra £40 whenever his circumstances would allow him I have not the slightest doubt. His pecuniary difficulties were greatly increased by members of his family on both sides."

List of Cromek's engravings with remarks by THC. A detailed list of the engravings with year of execution; with some additional remarks by THC concerning the originals, proof copies, suppression, ownership, etc. Also a list of doubtful works with a lengthy passage about the portrait of Romney Robinson in Hayley's Life of Romney. Notable is No. 42 in the list:"Medallion Portrait of Thomas William Malkin" (1806). THC writes,"The medallion portrait is in the same unfinished state in Blake's print, and in my father's proof: it was, no doubt, engraved by Robert Cooper. From the fragments of lettering at the edges of Blake's print, it seems clear that Blake not only drew, and engraved the pictures, but even printed it himself, on some piece of waste paper that came to his hand: It is not in the British Museum, and my impression is probably unique." THC later gave this print to the British Museum.

A two page account of the life of the engraver James Hopwood the Elder, 1745-1819, printmaker, a friend of RHC, the information gathered by THC from Hopwood's daughters many years after Hopwood's death. Gives much useful biographical detail and insight into Hopwood's character:"Miss Hopwood told that he [James Hopwood] occasionally received his visitors, with pieces of old carpet thrown about him, and that when in this costume he would frequently accompany them to the street door, and that in that state, would continue to hold conversations with them, notwithstanding the surprise and amusement of the passers-by."

Transcription of two letters from John Pye to THC dated 1862 (see Pye volume, volume five, for the originals) about his knowledge of RHC.

Transcription of family letters from volume two.

Transcription of a letter from the poet Thomas Campbell, one of RHC's friends, to Miss Mary Peacock (daughter of Peacock the architect, later married to James Gray - see volume two), when Miss Peacock was staying with the Cromeks. Evidently writing to an old friend, Campbell wishes to meet and"talk of old stories, - Jamie Grahame & Mrs. Hay, - my old flame Hannah and the enchanting Grimma." Also present is a transcription of a letter from Mary Peacock in Edinburgh to Miss Cromek:"You are a great favourite with your brother: you know his power of colouring, and he has painted you in such lively tint, that I have often...beheld the family group in Newman Street in the most attractive light." (THC's ascribed dates to these copies are mistaken as Mary Peacock married James Gray in October 1808.)

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Limp roan. c.115 pages. 4to. Dated December 1863. Lacks spine.

"Extracts from Arnold's"Magazine of the Fine Arts" and his"Library of the Fine Arts" relating to the painting and the engraving of"The Canterbury Pilgrimage." With my notes. Thomas H. Cromek. Dec. 3rd. 1863." THC's notes and comments (about three pages) are mainly concerned with the question when Stothard began his engraving. He also states that, according to his mother, Stothard received sixty guineas for the picture and that his father sold it to Hart Davies for three hundred pounds.

Transcript of a letter from THC to the Athenaeum dated Wakefield, December 21 1863, titled Stothard and Cromek. Written in reply to a letter from Stothard's son, Robert Stothard (original printed cutting included), vigorously pointing out a number of mistakes and misconceptions over the whole Canterbury Pilgrims saga. Importantly, THC contradicts Robert Stothard's assertion that the original picture was exhibited by Cromek in 1805 & 1806:"The commission of the painting was not given to Stothard until 1806. It was exhibited in Newman Street in May 1807, and by a letter from my father, dated Edinbro' Thursday June 11th 1807, I find he had, on that day, unpacked the picture, preparatory to its being unpacked in that city."

"Gilchrist's"Life of William Blake.""A few facts" versus"many slanderous assertions.""Ex uno disci omnes." By Thomas Hartley Cromek. 1864." THC has copied out the relevant passages from Gilchrist's book which concern his father, some 32 pages in all, and written about 9 pages in total of comments refuting Gilchrist. Many of the comments are decidedly acerbic in tone, responding in kind to Gilchrist's unremittingly poor opinion of Cromek and his doings, above all in the matter of Blair's Grave. Some of THC's rebuttals rely on dating, i.e. he comments thus on the engraving work:"As the drawings were not completed until the year 1806, no Prospectus helped by an elaborate opinion in their favour from Fuseli's pen...could have appeared in 1805. My father's advertisement containing the above testimonials is prefixed to the first edition of Blair's"Grave" and bears the date July 1808. In it there is not the slightest appearance that it was ever intended by my father that Blake was to engrave the illustrations: on the contrary it is distinctly stated that Schiavonetti had engraved them." Other passages question Gilchrist's sources. On the story quoted by Gilchrist from evidence by Nollekens Smith that Cromek was in the habit of calling on Blake and one day caught sight of his drawing of The Canterbury Pilgrims, THC writes,"All hearsay evidence - the bare assertions of Nollekens Smith, alias"Anecdote Smith." These transactions happened before I was born, and probably Mr. Gilchrist was very young at the time. Neither he nor I can possibly know anything of the matter. All I can say is: - I have never heard from my mother or my father's sister, or, in fact, from any of my father's contemporary friends, several of whom are still living, as such stories as most of those Mr. Gilchrist attempts to perform, by bare assertion only. How absurd to attempt to get at the truth of events of sixty years ago, when grounded on such a vague and rotten foundation as hearsay assertions!" From other comments by THC, it seems that he harboured grudges of his own against Gilchrist. It is clear that he was in touch via a third party with Gilchrist before publication of the life. As a holder of significant Blake material (he had an engraving of Blake's portrait of Malkin which he considers to have been not only engraved but printed by Blake -"From the fragments of letterpress on each side of the print, it would appear almost certain, that he [Blake] struck off this impression, on a piece of waste paper, that first came to hand") as well as three drawings by Blake including the frontispiece to Blair's Grave) he offered sight of these to Gilchrist, who, it seems, failed to respond. Bitterly, THC concludes,"Perhaps the son of an asserted thief and a filcher of autographs ought not to supposed worthy of possessing any such treasures from the hand of Blake" - a reference to Gilchrist's assertion that RHC stole from Sir Walter Scott an autograph letter by Ben Jonson. Further passages deal with the business of Cunningham and the Remains. In one passage THC refers to the famous letter his father wrote to Blake. In 1833 THC possessed a copy of the letter in his father's hand which he lent to Allan Cunningham. When THC asked for its return,"his answer was, his son Peter had sent the letter to my address in London, a short time previous. I have never seen the letter since: and by way of reply to the above reported 'illustrative anecdote,' I may say almost the same words of Walter Scott but in a stronger form: -"The last person, in whose hands I placed that letter, was Allan Cunningham and I have never seen it since."THC concludes his attack on Gilchrist thus:"Mr. Gilchrist's account of my father's death speaks for itself. May God pardon him, and not reward him according to these works."

Extract from the Westminster Review, January 1864. Part of a review of Gilchrist's book. In this context THC transcribes a letter from William Bewick the artist to him, dated February 18 1864, concerning the character of Nollekens Smith, late of the British Museum print room and author of a life of his ancestor Nollekens, on whom Gilchrist relied, it appears, for much of his material about the business of the stolen Ben Jonson letter. William Bewick writes that Nollekens Smith was a notorious gossip and goes on say, after thoroughly blackening the man's character,"No body cares or believes anything from Nollekens Smith." So strongly did THC feel about the calumnies made in Gilchrist's Life that he wrote an emotional letter to Gilchrist's widow, transcribing the letter here. After raising the subject of her husband's hurtful assertions, he turns to her directly:"How a woman could so far forget the innate tenderness of her sex, as thus knowingly to inflict so deep and lasting a wound on the heart of a son of the slandered victim, - would, until now, have seemed to me, incredible. I make no further comment, save this:-"I pardon you both, from my heart, as I hope to be forgiven."

Transcription of some of the original letters in the manuscript album.

A copy of a letter from Thomas Bewick to a Miss Bailey dated 6 December 1814.

A copy of a letter from Thomas Bewick to a firm of London paper merchants dated 25 April 1820 ordering paper for a new edition of his Birds.

A copy of a letter from the engraver Heath to Dawson Turner presenting a proof etching of The Canterbury Pilgrims.

A copy of a letter from RHC to the Examiner dated 2 September 1810 about The Canterbury Pilgrims; a copy of a letter to the Examiner by G. Testolini dated 22 July 1810 concerning Schiavonetti; copies of family letters from RHC (originals in volume two).

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Covers the period from 31 December 1834 to December 1872."Total from December 1834 to December 1872: - 478 pictures sold for £6777.12.0. i.e. average of £14-3-7 each. Maximum £80 (twice) 1847 and 1849." Purchasers include Prince Albert and Queen Victoria and Edward Lear. 61 pages. 8vo. Roan.

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