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Autographs/N: "Florence Nightingale" Recommends British Poet Arthur Hugh Clough

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Autographs/N:  Florence Nightingale  Recommends British Poet Arthur Hugh Clough
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, British Nurse and Hospital Reformer. Autograph Letter Signed, "Florence Nightingale," October 25, (c. 1852), no place, one page + three lines, written below a three page letter by her mother, Frances Nightingale, 6" x 4.5", Extremely Fine. Frances Nightingale writes to Abbott Lawrence, the textile mogul who served as U.S. minister to Great Britain from 1849-52, expressing disappointment that Lawrence and his wife had left London before the Nightingale's could introduce "a friend of ours, Mr. [Arthur Hugh] Clough, an excellent man & a capital scholar, who gained great honours at Oxford, but who now wishes to settle in America...." Florence writes, in part: "My mother has given me this note to forward to you...made bold by your great kindness to me...to add a circumstance which I think may interest your [illegible] in favor of our friend, Mr. Clough, which is that he is about to marry a very charming cousin of mine & that it is in order to make her a position that he is anxious to find a more impartial mother in your country than he has done in his own...." Another two pages, separate from the letter, and probably written by Florence's father, set out Arthur Hugh Clough's background and qualifications. Arthur Hugh Clough resigned from University College in 1852 and did travel to Boston, hoping to obtain a position at Harvard, but nothing came of it. He returned to England and married Florence Nightingale's cousin, Blanche Smith, and thereafter worked on a translation of "Plutarch's Lives" and a large poem, "Mari Magno"; he also spent much time helping Florence lobby for reform. This letter was written early in Florence Nightingale's career, before the Crimean War and the reforms which would make her famous. A total of six pages, accompanied by the transmittal envelope.