TURGOT (Anne-Robert-Jacques). AUTOGRAPH LETTER to his secret - Lot 66

TURGOT (Anne-Robert-Jacques). AUTOGRAPH LETTER to his secretary Caillard dated April 20, 1778 in Paris. 8 pages in-4°. Remarkable letter of capital interest concerning F. Desmarets, the relationship between music and poetry, Didon's metrical verses, gout, Voltaire, angle measurements, etc. "...We reasoned together and with M. Desmarets about the printing of Le voyage d'Islande. Booksellers today... have become ten times more difficult about acquiring manuscripts... I communicated to him the passages from Niebuhr that you transcribed; he was unaware that Arabia was filled with prisms... As for Didon, it is absolutely impossible to publish it... The honors Voltaire received at the performance of Irénée... He is preparing to return to Ferney... Abbé Rochon of the Académie des Sciences has found a very ingenious way of using the double refraction of Iceland crystal to measure the smallest angles, to within a tenth of a second... (follow 3 pages on the subject). Handwritten erasures and additions. This correspondence is reproduced verbatim in SCHELLE (G): OEuvres de Turgot, P., Alcan, 1913 (Tome III, pages 645, erroneous date 1773). Fine condition.