Letter from Lady Catherine Ashburnham to Rupert Gunnis

Is grateful for the new information, and can imagine the gentle Percy supplicating on behalf of his fierce brother of behalf of Dr Waagen. [Waagen] apparently allowed Dr Bode, who CA thinks was the head of the Berlin Gallery, to come down and record his views in the catalogues at Ashburnham. CA allowed three of the pictures to be published, which has let her in for correspondence with America. Does not think that grandfather collected miniatures; they were mainly family ones, and the aunts had some. There are only a few at Ashburnham, and does not think that they are of any value. The famous younger [John Frederick] Herring has arrived, and shows six enormous oxen and a driver in a white smock and tall beaver hat, with a hilly landscape. It is in a poor state, and CA thinks that someone has been playing darts with it. CA has started to clean it. It ought to go to Lewes Museum some day because of its local interest. Has won her appeal, supported by the family, against the refusal of the Acting Chief Constable (formerly of Brighton, and not a gentleman) to grant a revolver licence. Has been trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid publicity. Dick [John Richard Bickersteth] wrote an account of the victory in heroic metre.