From James Madison to Nathaniel H. Carter, 22 December 1824
To Nathaniel H. Carter
Montpellier Decr. 22. 1824
the copy of “Pains of the Imagination,”1 for […]ness. It is so long since I ceased to indulge […] the period when the imagination is most […] less pretend to decide on the merit of […] that on a cursory perusal my eye was […] inspiration;2 […] ⟨h⟩armony […] inclosed to me is addressed on the […] ⟨m⟩ention the mistake merely as proper […]ks Sir for the favor I have received
Draft (DLC). Fragment. Nathaniel Hazeltine Carter (1787–1830), of Concord, New Hampshire, was a graduate of Dartmouth College and for a short time professor of languages there. In 1819 he became editor of the New York newspaper, the Statesman, and reported from Washington during the congressional sessions. His travels in Europe were likewise reported in letters printed in the Statesman, and later published as Letters from Europe (1827). Illness forced him to give up his occupation in 1829 and he died in Marseilles, France (New-York Mirror: A Weekly Journal, Devoted to Literature and the Fine Arts 10 [1833]: 273–74; Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 22 Feb. 1830).
1. Nathaniel Hazeltine Carter, Pains of the Imagination. A Poem, Read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Dartmouth College, August 19, 1824 (Boston, 1824; 15691).
2. Here JM wrote and then canceled: “⟨be⟩tokening the inspiration of the Muse;” and “was gratifying to the Ear.”