Diary of Anne Marsh Caldwell (1791-1874) for 1811
(In 1811 Anne was 20 years old)

 

[I might have got these pages mixed up with another diary JJHC]

 

Page 45 [continuing on from 1810]

 

1811

 

Caractere du Prince Potemkin.

 

Je vois un commandant d'armees [le prince Potemkin] qui a l'air parasseus et qui travaille sans cesse qui n'a d'autre bureaur que ses genout d'autre peine que ses doigts, toujours couche et ne dormant ni jour ni nuit parce que son jele pour la souverain qu'ill adore l'agite tourjours et qu'un coup de Canon qu'il n'essuie as l'inquiete par l'idee qu'il coute la vie a quelquesuns de ses soldats. Peusent pour les autres brave pour lui meme, s'arretant sous le plus grand feu d'une  battrie pour y donner ses ordres cependent plus Hlysse qu Achille, inquiet avant tous les dangers gai quand il y est, malheureuse a force d'etre heureus blasé sur tout se degoutant aisement morose, inconstant, philosophe profond minister habile, politque sublime, on enfant de dix ans, point vindicatif demandant pardon d'un chagrin qu'il a cause repasant vite une  injustice croyant aimer  Dieu anignant le diable qu'il s'imagine etre enerve plus grand et plus gros qu'un prince Potemkin, d'une main

 

Page 46 - 51 - French transcription continues. 

 

Emulation loves - envy hates its object. Emulation hopes, Envy despairs. Emulation is ingenuous. Envy is deceitful, emulation is engergetick, envy is indolent, emulation is the health of genius, envy its morbid disease.

Miss Edwards letters.

 

2nd January 1811, Wednesday

The Sneyds, Colonel Dobson and Jos Wedgwood dined. 

 

3rd January 1811, Thursday

The Sneyds, Colonel Dobson left us. Mr John Heathcote dined here. 

 

4th January 1811, Friday

Mr J.  Heathcote went.

 

5th January 1811, Saturday

The Wedgwoods left us.

 

9th January 1811, Wednesday

The Assembly.

 

11th January 1811, Friday

S. Wedgwood, Mr Butt came.

 

12th January 1811, Saturday

C Powys came, Mr Butt went.

 

13th January 1811, Sunday

JSC left us.

 

14th January 1811, Monday

S. Wedgwood went.

 

15th January 1811, Tuesday

Cath Powys went.

 

17th January 1811, Thursday

The girls, my Aunt from Liverpool.

 

20th January 1811, Sunday

John and William Bent dined here.

 

26th January 1811

The Cromptons came.

 

28th January 1811

My Aunts, Miss Harwood and M Garnett.

 

30th January 1811

A and E Garnett.

 

5th February 1811, Tuesday [page 52]

[Be, We?] acted the [Houls, Hrouls?] busy as the manager, anxious as the actor, depressed as AC when all was over.

 

6th February 1811, Wednesday

My Uncle came.

 

7th February 1811, Thursday

Mr R Sherrett dined here.

 

8th February 1811, Friday

My Uncle left us.

 

14th February 1811

All our party left us taking Louisa with them.

 

20th February 1811

I went with Papa, Mama and my Aunt to Portfield. Mr Butt and Congreves dined there. 

 

21st February 1811

The Oranges, Robinsons and Mr Rickets dined at PF.

 

22nd February 1811

Returned home.

 

26th February 1811

Mrs Lawton called. Mr Ralph came.

 

1st March 1811, Friday

Mama, Papa, HEC dined at Stoneyfield.

 

2nd March 1811, Saturday

Mr Ralph went. 

 

3rd March 1811, Sunday

John Bent dined here.

 

6th March 1811, Wednesday

Book sale. Heathcotes.

 

8th March 1811, Friday

Assembly. Nigel Heathcote.

 

9th March 1811, Saturday

Mrs and Miss Furnivall, Mr, Mrs W Bent, Mr Walthal[?].

 

10th March 1811, Sunday

Mr and Mrs B [W?] Bent went. 

 

11th March 1811, Monday

Mrs and Miss F went.

 

12th March 1811, Tuesday

Louisa came home.

 

13th March 1811, Wednesday

Mr Wedgwood, Mr and Mrs J.W. dined here.

 

22nd March 1811

Mr Finna dined here.

 

23rd March 1811

Mr Wood and Mr Tomlinson dined here.

 

27th March 1811

Mr Slater came.

 

28th March 1811

Mr Slater went.

 

29th March 1811

Papa went to Stafford.

 

30th March 1811

Papa came home.

 

31st March 1811

Mr W. Bent dined.

 

4th April 1811, Monday [page 53]

Eliza, Emma, my Aunt went to Etruria to get plants. 

 

5th April 1811, Tuesday

Mr Butt and Bayley, Miss Congreves and Wedgwood dined and staid all night.

 

8th April 1811

Miss Wedgwood left us.

 

10th April 1811

The Lawtons, Mr and Mrs J Wedgwood.

 

13th April 1811

My Aunt, MEC to Nantwich.

 

14th April 1811

Mr Tomlinson called.

 

16th April 1811

I went with Eliza to Betley

 

19th April 1811

We returned home.

 

21st April 1811

Ed Crompton, Mr and John Bent dined, walked to Church.

 

22nd April 1811

Papa went to London. HS, MEC home. 

 

24th April 1811

Mama, HS, HEC to Ashcombe.

 

26th April 1811

Mama, HS, MEC and I dined at Lawton.

 

30th April 1811

HS, JSC, MC, Mama to London.

 

4th May 1811, Wednesday [page 54]

Went to Newcastle, called at Stoney fields and Basford. 

 

6th May 1811, Friday

Mrs Lawton called.

 

7th May 1811

John Bent drank tea.

 

8th May 1811

John Bent dined.

 

10th May 1811

Called at Lawton Hall.

 

11th May 1811

Went to the Review, dined at Stoney field, Mr Butt, Captain Jones, M Bent, Mr W and Griffin in the evening.

 

16th May 1811

To the Fashions, walked to  Basford, went on to Maer.

 

18th May 1811

Came home.

 

Page 55 

 

19th May 1811

They returned.

 

22nd May 1811

Papa returned.

 

23rd May 1811

We went to Etruria. Mr Wood dined here.

 

28th May 1811

They dined at Betley Hall

 

30th May 1811

Mr and Mrs C Lawton called.

 

31st May 1811

Mr Butt came.

 

1st June 1811, Saturday [page 55]

They drank tea at Burslem. Mr Butt went.

 

2nd June 1811, Sunday

Mr Bent and Mr Spode dined.

 

4th June 1811, Tuesday

My Aunt, MEC, MC to Matlock.

 

6th June 1811, Thursday

Mr Blunt and John, Mr Butt.

 

7th June 1811, Friday

We dined at Mr Butts, Eliza to Hartfield.

 

18th June 1811

The Woods, M. Eliz, Emma and Mrs Wilson.

 

20th June 1811

HEC returned. Mr Buttel

 

23rd June 1811

The Woods left us.

 

28th June 1811

Mrs Dumaresque Coape and Smith dined, loveliness.

 

2nd July 1811, Tuesday [page 55]

Went to Nantwich with Eliza.

 

4th July 1811, Thursday

Drank tea at Mr Sprouts [?], dance at Mrs Gunshers [?].

 

5th July 1811, Friday

Dined at my Uncles.

 

6th July 1811, Saturday

Play, saw Miss Parsons in Isabella.

 

7th July 1811, Sunday

Walked with Miss Mainwarings [?] to Dorfold cottage.

 

8th July 1811, Monday

At Mrs Garnetts.

 

9th July 1811, Tuesday

To Mrs Clarkson's, went to see the farce of the Bechia

 

10th July 1811, Wednesday

At Mrs Thomas Garnetts.

 

11th July 1811, Thursday

Dined at my Uncles.

 

12th July 1811, Friday

Returned with my Aunts in haste, Mary ill.

Mr Blunt at Linley Wood.

 

19th July 1811

My Uncle came.

 

21st July 1811

Mr W [?] Bent dined at Linley Wood, my Uncle went.

 

22nd July 1811

JSC came from London.

 

25th July 1811

Mr Wood and Wedgewood dined at Linley Wood.

 

5th August 1811, Monday [page 56]

Mr Tyrrol [Lynch?] came.

 

6th August 1811, Tuesday

First Race day, a good Ball. Mary ill. Aunt B staid with her.

 

7th August 1811, Wednesday

Second Race Play, the Honeymoon. Sat by EP [CP?]

 

8th August 1811, Thursday

Third Race Day, did not go.

 

9th August 1811, Friday

My Aunt went a long walk with J to see prospects.

 

10th August 1811, Saturday

Lady Stafford, Lady C Gower called.

 

12th August 1811, Monday

Mr Lynch went. To Aqualate, Cromptons breakfasted here.

 

13th August 1811, Tuesday 

Returned, called on Mrs Thomas.

 

15th August 1811, Wednesday

Jos Wedgwood, Eliza, Mrs [Drewe Stoned?] dined here. 

 

16th August 1811, Thursday

They left us.

 

17th August 1811, Friday

I left Linley Wood with my Aunt and Eliza on a tour to the Highlands. We proceeded by Manchester, Chorley and Preston to Lancaster. I have travelled this road before on which there is little to observe, there are some fine views of the Nibble in the road between Preston and Chorley.

 

18th August 1811, Saturday

We walked to see Lancaster Castle, the ancient part was built by John of Gaunt, of this a large square tower remains. The Castle has been repaired by Wyatt and contains the prison and courts. The view from the hill is very fine, but the morning was too unfavourable for us to enjoy it. The Church is old and in the inside there is a carved screen worth looking at. To Kirby Lonsdale 10. Very fine views of the Lune and the wooded hills that surround it. There is an aqueduct near Lancaster well worth seeing. The Yorkshire mountains form a fine horizon, the whole of the way, the approach to Kirby is very beautiful and nothing can be finer or more uncommon than the view from the walk near the Church which overhangs at a prodigious height the close and finely wooded valley of the Lune. It is really glorious. The road to Kendall 14, is mountainous. The approach to the town very pleasing, the Castle a green hill in the neighbourhood has a good effect. The road to Bownes 7, is over wild mountain heaths, in some places finely broken with rocks and shrubs, the first [coup d oed?] of Winandermere [Windermere?] is not striking, it was nearly dark when we arrived on its banks.

 

19th August 1811, Sunday [page 58]

We took a boat and by the clear light of a blue and early smiling morning and in the soft air of 6 o'clock enjoyed a most delightful row to Waterhead. The lake is a fine expanse of water and the banks finely wooded and cultivated, the water broken by innumerable islands where the light shrubs wave and week over the water which breaks into the thousand bays of [their?] rocks on which they grow. The mountains at the head of the Lake are fine and their crossing and varying lines give a beautiful termination. I was in enchantment but to me morning when it is fine lends a luster amounting to deception to all on which it shines. We proceeded to Ambleside, then by a lovely ride to Rydale Water, very very beautiful, winding among the grass and shrubs at Rydale Hall, there is a very pretty waterfall of exquisite coolness. Grassmere is well wooded. I rather preferred however, the dark solitary melancholy aspect of Wyburn [Wythburn?]. Through fine glens by Helvellyn we reached Keswick and here the rain and clouds came on so darkly that the glorious view from a hill before reaching the town was quite obscured. The lake must be fine, the point of the mountains that break into it are so bold. [Skedding?] stands at a small distance and appears high and dark, the clouds were rolling in [fleeces?] round it, an effect peculiar to mountain scenery and more remarkable than sublime. Went to a stupid [?] museum, a dull man dragged us through a wet field to see what we saw very well before. Through rain we went to Penrith, from the high hill ascended from Keswick there is a fine view looking into the valley in which lies Bassenthwaite and down upon Keswick. On the dreary road to Penrith one only object was worth remembering, it was where the road was almost destroyed by a water spout which had ploughed up the road and washed away a bridge. Near Penrith the country is wooded and well cultivated but in large plains. This gives to all the country on this side near the border a peculiar appearance. I fancy it is not an anciently enclosed country and centuries elapse before the appearance of barreness is erased. To Carlisle, we went in the twilight and dark, the road is over green commons, very dull.

 

20th August 1811, Monday

From Carlisle to Longtown through a flat and scantily wooded country, from thence Langholm 3 ½ miles, from Langholm enter Scotland by two tollgates, the rest of the road is along the finely wooded dale of the Esk. The banks are steep and covered with trees and shrubs that hang over the river [remaining foaming?] over rocks and pebbles and bridges thrown frequently over it which from the shade of the waving[?] branches are peculiarly romantick. Pass Netherby Hall and Carobie Lea, the scene of the Ballad of Lochindar. Also Gilnachie Castle, the residence of Johnnie Armstrong, a strong square building. The road to Hawick till within a few miles lies entirely among the Cheviot which are merely green hills of no beauty or wildness, many of them cultivated with cabbages, turnips and potatoes. Near Moss Paul there is a fine view looking back to England, this we omitted seeing. A few miles from Hawick enter Teviot-dale. It bears no comparison with Esk-dale being little wooded and the glen not sufficiently filled by the river. Branxholm is a long white house only remarkable by an ancient tower, something like the points of the houses in Cheshire. Near this the Borthwick joins the Twist. We passed Goldilands, a cannon's tower on a height commanding the dale. And up to Harwick, this town is evidently ancient, one bridge at the back of the inn is very picturesque. In this first Scotch town I was struck with a general air of discomfort. The houses have small windows fixed inwards, more of the bay windows one sees to shops in England, the appearance of the people in the dark and dirty looking plaids was rough and mean, but heavy rain perhaps contributed to render this first aspect of Caledonia disconsolate. To Selkirk over a dreary moor. We passed a deserted burying place. There is something in the mournful solitude of a grave far from all living friend or mourner, an entire oblivion where every name is forgotten, that strikes a certain string of my heart in a tone most melancholy. Selkirk is wretched. In this part of the country however agriculture seems in a tolerable state of improvement, the turnip husbanding is particularly neat, the plough here holding the horse in reins, and in lieu of teams several carts drawn by one horse, the hindmost fastened to the cart before are in use. From Selkirk to Melrose, there is little of beauty, the Tweed so fair in song has here barren banks. Melrose stands upon a promontory, well wooded, the Abbaye is not at all fine, from a distance, indeed it has almost a grotesque appearance.

 

21st August 1811, Tuesday [page 63]

We went early to see the ruin and indeed it is magnificent, the remains I should think of the Church only. It is ornamented to an exquisite degree of minuteness but so finely proportioned that there is no heaviness. The pillars rise "lofty and light and small" and the Arch of the chancel from it height and delicacy is of exquisite beauty. We went up to the top and walked through the galleries that run round the [huth?] of the church, the view from this is the most beautiful. It is astonishing the infinite delicacy with which all the parts are executed, even at the tops of the towers, one may almost compare it to nature, perfect every where and not adorned merely for superficial observation. There is a tradition here of the principal parts and plans coming from Italy, at least so far as a traditionary story founded on this circumstance may be called so. The same exist at Roslin and seems to confirm Barry's theory on the origin of Gothic Architecture. A beautiful but tremendous ride by Galla water and the pretty village of Gallashiels leads to Middleton, thence to Bank House. Bank House proceed to Edinburgh, some miles from the capital are very fine views of the Pentland Hills and the mountains of Fife Shire and the Salisbury Craigs and Arthurs Seat behind. Edinburgh, here we diverged to Roslin. Borthwick Castle is seen at the distance of square towers, great solidity and little beauty. Dalhousie is a fine place, very well planted. The village of Laswade is prettily situated but a great air of discomfort about the women and children. The women do a great deal of hard work in the fields and in consequence are rough and course looking. Roslin Chapel is in perfect preservation except the altar and the figures of the Saints which John Knox destroyed. The architecture is ornamental to excess, but it is without taste or proportion and the whole has a heavy gloomy effect. Here I saw Bassorchinos used in the cornices, historical subjects were represented but not certainly in Italian sculpture. The Castle stands upon a high rock over hung with shrubs and the situation is remarkably fine, it must have been of prodigious strength, the rooms that still remain entire, which we saw, appear menial apartments and the only light comes through loop holes for the archers. Above there is a good deal entire which is still used as a dwelling house but we did not go into them. The Linn is not worth going to see on this side the river as the rocks hide the best part of the fall[?]. The walk down the glen is very fine, much resembling Matlock [Maltock?] on the opposite sides are the caves of Northornden, vast excavations used as places of concealment in ancient days of ruin. It was too far for us to get at them. I believe they are light by a [communication?] through the roof. Roslin is one of the professed Lions of Scotland, but is not in any single feature equal to many less famous things. The country as you approach the capital is distinguished by the complete want of that gay luxuriant peopled appearance that in general marks the approach to a large town, there is not a spot in the Cheviot more cold and barren looking than some views from the road within a few miles of Edinburgh present. It is true there are trees but they are all ill compensating for the general barreness. Here there are none [swathed?] by "Nature free and Boon," over the country, the fields are enclosed by stone walls and once or twice I looked from the carriage window without seeing a shrub. There are many magnificent mansions, about 6 or 8 miles from the town, but no trim boxes and neat gardens, that retreat of commonplace opulence which gives an air of gaiety to the country. The Queen of the North sits yet in gloomy grandeur surrounded by her noble Barons but with none of the luxury or gaiety of inferior trade to enliven or degrade her. The roads present no bustle, all is quiet and lonely. The suburbs are really wretched. It was now dark and as we left these miserable dwellings and entered the High Street it was like the change of enchantment - houses of prodigious height finely lighted, brilliant shops, bustle and confusion in the street and the sound of the Bagpipe playing national[?] airs with the new delight of curiosity in a new capital entirely gratified gave a feeling of animation and pleasure that I never felt before. We passed quite down this noble street, crossed North[?] Bridge by the Register Office and entered St Andrews Square. We alighted at Dumbucks Hotel.

 

22nd August 1811, Wednesday [page 67]

We devoted the day to walking about the town. It is divided by a wide depth called the North Loch though entirely without water into the old and new town. the New Town is built in perfect regularity both with respect to the plan of the streets and the elevation of the houses which are all of fair white stone. The streets are very wide and flagged and in consequence of the descent of the ground each one commands views of a fine surrounding country to which the wide extent of water in the Firth and the bold heights of the neighbouring mountains give peculiar beauty - in this respect if it had no other superiority Dun-Edin would surpass all towns I have ever seen to enjoy the dread magnificence of nature in the bosom of a capital is a privilege her inhabitants possess alone. Princess Street lies along the North Lock and is a mile long, the Bond Street of the place while on the ground floor perhaps above and below are the St Giles'es and the Monmouth Street of the place the plan of building upon flats obtains every where and adorns the outside while it defiles within. At the top of one of these magnificent stone houses may often be found every form of dirt and squalidness. The Register Office is at the end of this Street as you approach the North Bridge, it is a magnificent stone building. The squares in Edinburgh are not proportionate in grandeur to the streets, nothing equal to the finer squares in London. The old town is in direct opposition to the new. The High Street alone is regular and disappointed me this morning. All through there is the narrowness of old streets and their accompanying dirt and closeness, the houses are all irregular and dark looking and many (anxious cchpa ?) interesting for each has its story are seen among them. We then went upon the Catton Hill, those who have seen Barkers Panorama have a complete and exact picture of this view yet still how inimitable is Nature the effect is entirely different. Here is a monument to Nelson constructed in the same messiah taste that pervades like a fatality all the honours lavished upon him. Humes monument may be seen, it is plain.

HH joined up before dinner. 

(three lines crossed out thoroughly - maybe be heavy writing '.. never do..)

In the evening we walked again about the New Town. One of the most agreeable parts of Edinburgh is the confidence and liberality of its inhabitants, that confidence which allows young girls to walk as in a country town, and that liberality which does not confer (gentility crossed out) respect according to the carriage but the person. Chiefly of small fortune and refined taste the people have learnt to distinguish between wealth and consequence. The town is at this season thin and the carriages very remarkably few. Nor does the general air of the better classes equal the elegance of London rank but then there is nothing in the lower orders that the least recalls the meanness, pertness and affected superiority of London cockays to use an immense vulgarism. The people in the shops have a manner perfectly insinuating.

 

23rd August 1811, Thursday [page 70]

We employed the morning in a walk to Leith. This side of the town has more the air of trade than the southern, though I should think it but small. Leith Walk is edged on each side by small shops like booths, the people here are mean looking creatures and there are many beggars but these I understand are chiefly Irish. Leith is like all little ports, wretched, dirty and noisy and exactly what I most dislike. The tide was out but from the Pier there is a very fine view down the Firth and of the opposite mountains of Fife Shire. We returned home and then walked down again to see the 42nd embark for Tilbury Fort. I expected to see a good deal of national enthusiasm on the occasion here, however I was disappointed that enthusiasm I fancy is too often but imagined. The Regiment however were well worth seeing, a finer set of men I never beheld, the dark expressive countenance, the serious dignity of the Gael strongly contrasts with the common place of common countenances and the waving black plumes that give infinite grace to their appearance and the (nature?) and the national dress conspire to make it a fine and uncommon spectacle. There were some women weeping bitterly and friends walking arm in arm for the last time. From what I saw I should imagine an embarkation for foreign service the most affecting sight in the world. Sir Sidney Smith was here, his countenance is dark and pleasing rather than heroic, his figure small and square. I saw him very near, he seemed much interested in the Regiment. The Scotch mob however did not seem moved with the warm enthusiasm with which an English one greets a hero, he rode home with little notice. English phlegm is nothing to Scotch frigidity.

In the evening we called to the Castle, it is now converted into Barracks and stands upon a perfectly insulated rock, a finer ands stronger situation I never saw but I lost the opportunity of examining the view, a Scotch band charmed me into the court of the Castle and there I remained till a thick mist rendered the Birdseye view of the town indistinct, the Castle stands at the head of the North Lock and commands both the old and new town. I forgot to mention that at Leith we went into the Fort and an officer obligingly shewed us the Barracks. I was delighted with the neatness, cleanness ordered  (densaway?) that pervaded every part, each room contained about ten or (twelve?) beds which are boarded with boards as white as snow and on which is a mattress which rolling up like a bolster (leaves, turns?) a comfortable seat. Over his bed each man has his accoutrements suspended. Each set of men have their different mess sufficient to (lay?) a pound of meat each a day is subtracted from their pay and the meat is divided with great fairness among them. The Officer goes round at dinner time to see that all is right and to listen to any complaints that may be made. His was a corps of artillery. We went and saw the horses the ordinance and cars for the men all in beautiful order. We saw a Cannonade of 13 pounders which is of (rough?) it can only be loaded with a 16lb of powder, the weight of gt ball, and therefore does not carry so far as it might. 12 pounders are the guns most in use and are loaded with a 12 lb of powder. Paul Jones took this fort in his time.

 

24th August 1811, Friday [page 73]

The morning proved rainy. H. Holland took us to the Society's rooms to see the islandic (Icelandic?) specimens. Sir George McKenzie joined us here, plain in his dress and manner as the wisest philosopher, he appears to have greatly too much good humour and gaiety to waste upon mineralogical pursuits. As the specimens were collected chiefly with a view to geological discourse they are little interesting to me. And the views which we saw cannot from the nature of the country be either beautiful or curious to an unscientific eye. I amused myself with looking at Riddels comparative view of the mountain and was surprised to find how greatly the eye is deceived in heights. I was likewise astonished to find how low Vesuvius and how high Etna ranked in the scale.

We took a coach and went to Holyrood through the Argate (Cowgate?) and other old streets. Holyrood lies at the west of the old town, it is a large and magnificent building forming a hollow square, on one side is the chapel entirely in ruins. We first saw the Grand Council room where the peers for Scotland are now elected. It is hung round with the pictures of all the Scottish kings, a few only of the later ones are portraits. Here is one of poor Mary that has been much defaced by Cromwell's soldiers when quartered here. This really seems to make it more interesting, one would fancy her in tears. There are many fine portraits in the suite of apartments you afterwards pass through. One of Darnley, a weak looking tall thin man, two most lovely pictures of Nel Gwyn and Jane Shore. One of Mary in mourning. The bed chamber is too well pictured in Robertson to need an inferior attempt. The furniture of all these rooms in the french taste seem to prove the fondness with which Mary remembered and retained every trace of that nation where all of her life she only was happy. In a work box of the queen's own embroidery we were shewn a portrait painted with exquisite delicacy but a copy only and with little character or expression. No portrait here gives the least idea of the lovely face represented by a print in some of the (cobhous?) Humes England. I don't know where the original is. On the table in the room where she supped on the fatal night was some armour of a weight which almost staggers the belief of its ever being worn. In the apartments appropriated to the French Princes we saw a portrait of the Duchess D'Angouleme which I cannot and will not believe like her, so fat so flat, so contented a countenance would destroy all the interest of its story. There is here a good portrait of Madame Elizabeth painted by a German lady. I say good for they say it is very like and many would say beautiful for the details are executed with infinite delicacy, but there is no character and no grace and to tell me a feather is so very like a feather you might mistake it for one is to excite in me little admiration and no pleasure. A print of the Prince de Conde interested me a thousand times more. Here we saw a picture painted by Madame Elizabeth in the Temple, the interest of the story would blind the eye of criticism in tears but it does not require partiality. In Lady E Murray's apartments there are some pictures worth looking at. In Lord Bredalbone's none except the monkey faces of the Royal family of Denmark may be called so. As I walked home with Stamford we passed the gate way through which Montrose passed. I am little affected by the historic passion and can tread renown places without emotion but at this place through which the greatest of heroes passed to mockery, to disgrace and death my heart swelled within me. In the evening we went to the Play. The theatre is a temporary one, the company were neither well dressed nor well looking, but the best of Edinburgh is in the country, yet I felt interested as many book(?) names were amongst the audience. The performance was wretched. As we came out we were introduced to Jeffrey. I was much struck with the intelligence of his countenance, his easy eloquence, the gallantry like of his manner and the brilliance of his descriptions, this man I am sure is clever and he is the first I ever was sure of.

 

25th August 1811, Saturday  [page 73]

We were obliged again to make us of a coach which prevents those views of a town that alone make one well acquainted with it to Sir Harry Moncrieffs Kirk where we heard a Mr Dickson. The place was perfectly plain as a meeting house in England. A tall man with dark hair unassisted by responses or even by notes began a service which the solemnity of the preacher, the silent attention of the people and the warmth and good sense of the discourse rendered more impressive than any service I have ever heard. He had a voice which most would call bad, to me it was awful, his whole air appeared was tucked(?) and drew attention entirely devoted to the holy office in which he was engaged. He gave a sermon and after that a discourse illustrative of it. The singing is led by the Clerk, all the congregation join and the double galleries give the voices a singular and pleasing effect. It reminded me of that attributed to Coselles cradle movement of flights of angels singing in the air the tone rising and falling with their ascending or descending motion. Afterwards we went to hear Alison. He is a favourite here. I was greatly disappointed, the discourse was common place, the delivery feeble. I never saw a more attentive congregation.

 

26th August 1811 [ page 78]

We breakfasted at Mrs Fletchers, Sir B Boothby was there, the conversation was literary and rather bright, but that brightness was evidently produced by effort and had nothing of the sunshine which affords (some words crossed out) melts the icy fetters of mauvais fionte and makes conversation free and fluent. It was also too much on the give and take system of flattery and I wanted a certain politeness which gives inestimable charm. But those who sit by without partaking of a feast of this kind are rather unfair critics. It determined me never to pressure upon being anything not even upon what I appeared to have the fairest claims. To disappoint with the smile of self approbation c'est joner un personage trop indienle.

Afterwards we walked about the town. Went into the parliament square which is in the old town in the centre a statue I have forgot of whom. We went into a house, the building of which was indeed favoured by the inequality of the ground where we stood, it was 7 stories above and 7 below us.

We dined at Woodhouselee, Lord Woodhouselee's, we were received and entertained with the finest hospitality, everything seemed exerted for the happiness of the received and not to gratify the ostentation of the receiver. Here I had alone the opportunity of viewing the refined and polished Scotch, the style of the house and table was in general the same as in England, the manners had the perfect simplicity and heartiness of former times with the refined polish of the present, I thought them very inimitable.

 

27th August 1811 [page 79]

We left Edinburgh with H.H. The road lies through a well cultivated and wooded country, the Pentland hills form a fine horizon, pass Middery Castle, the form a plain square with the remains of lighter buildings at the top. This form which must make them impregnable is universal all over this part of the country. The Ochill mountains lie at some distance to the right. A nobleman some thirty years ago got silver enough out of his lead miens in these hills to make a service of plate. At some distance from Linlithgow the palace appears, it is situated at the top of a hill hung with wood and at the bottom a small loch. As we walked to the palace a shower of rain sent us into the first Scotch cottage I had entered. There was every thing of dirt and discomfort and confusion that can be imagined. There is a fountain stands in the street of a very ruinous construction bit it is not ancient, being the exact copy of one that stood there before it by a man with one hand. The palace is built round a square and appears to have been constructed at different times. One part was built by James the 6th. The building is rather magnificent than pleasing, the architecture is of a very mixed kind. The ruin of the (Pasban?) chamber is fine and the chamber which is shewn as the one where unhappy Mary was born commands a very pretty view of the Loch below. The church is of the simple unornamented Gothic. Here you are shewn the place where the spectre appeared to James 4th. We observed the curious custom of painting black tears upon the pillars near a grave which disagreeably reminded me of the flames painted on the dress of the victims of the inquisition.

From Linlithgow to Sterling you pass through Falkirk and then enjoy one of the loveliest views in the world for all the rest of the way everything most beautiful in nature conspires to adorn the lovely valley through which the Forth runs, a luxuriant country well cultivated and wooded, bounded by most noble mountains and watered by a magnificent river with various ruins scattered here and there which much improve and add the charm of association to nature. This country must long have been cultivated, there is an appearance of great antiquity about the enclosures, gateposts &c. Pass Bannockburn of which there is no trace, and the Carron iron works smoke away about a mile from the road, but strangers are not permitted to see them. The approach to towering Sterling is very fine, it was moonlight when we arrived and instantly went to the castle, built on a rock of gigantic sized height and commanding the entire country as far as Edinburgh on one side and (Benventichor?) the other. A scene unequalled by imagination, unrivalled by reality, the most glorious and perfect landscape of extent that the eye can behold or the heart conceive by a clear bright moonlight that gave even the distance, it is impossible to give an idea to those who have not seen it, those who have will need no remembrancer.

 

28th August 1811 [page 82]

Early in the morning we left Stirling for Callander, before setting out however, we again went to the Castle. The morning was dim which prevented our seeing the very fine horizon of which Ben Ledi a distinguishing point. We mistook the road and took a very dull one as far as Doune(?), the right one lies by Blair Drummond, the seat of Lord Hames. At Doune there is a castle beautifully situated, it is much in ruins but appears considerable. The road from hence to Callander is interesting, leaving cultivation at Blair Drumond enter upon a wild country. The Leith dark broad and rapid runs often near the road and adds much to the beauty of the scenery. Callander the first mountain town we entered is built in a long kind of street, the houses are small but neat looking. We alighted at an excellent inn, but wanting in many things that we esteem in England indispensible. After breakfast we passed over a fine wild country to the Lochs. Some cottages that we passed were the most wild and desolate habitations that it ever entered into the heart of man to imagine. Loch Venachar is long, wide and gloomy, the mountains on the opposite side towering(?) and barren, and here it began to rain with a violence which obscured every beauty and left us to guess with grief and impatience what the rest of these lovely lakes might have been. Lock Achray with its wild and weeping underwood is soft and lovely. Before we entered the Trossachs we stopped at a wild place built by one Stewart for the accommodation of travelers. I did not go in which I regretted afterwards. I like to confess the truth, the truth is then that the Trossachs disappointed me. And Lock Katrine herself was so entirely different from what I expected that surprise and disappointment were upper most in my mind. Unaccustomed to mountain scenery I had expected something more gigantic and awe striking in the rocks and more beauty and verdure in the trees and banks. The mountains that bend round the Loch appear piles of rocks and stones and heath and underwood all thrown by the wild hand of nature in confusion. The lake is long and the view down it very fine but we were not in the boat two minutes before it began again to rain with intolerable violence. We clambered up a steep woody bank to a little rock house and there sat starved and shivering till it was time to return. This Stamford and I did by coasting the lake to the road and here could I but have looked with pleasure wet and weary as I was I should have seen some of the loveliest views in nature. The large island, the bay and promontory are so beautifully wooded and broken. The Trossachs is a deep defile between rocks not as is perpendicular but enormous heaps of broken rocks, heaps that in the (vois?) of the giants might have been hurled towards heaven and fallen there. Stamford and I walked home. It was a dreadful walk, the mountain torrents foaming from the hills make the road almost impassable and the labour was incredible. Fear of passing these precipices in the dark and an ill defined wish to walk all the way led me on. The result was extreme fatigue and a determination never to do so absurd a thing again. But the excessive kindness of the naked footed highland women when they put me to bed, the softness of their tones, the tenderness of their expressions and their careful watchfulness gave me an opinion of the Gaelic character which I hope I shall never forget. The road to Loch Katrine is rough and tremendous. These lakes here but lately been discovered to travelers thirty years ago, the inhabitants in their vicinity imagined the Stewarts were still on the throne of Scotland. At Callander we saw all the children in kilts.

 

29th August 1811

Leaving Callander we proceeded to Loch Eamhead. The way lies up the pass of Lennie (Leny?). The entrance is formed on one side by the majestic Ben Ledi. Swollen by the rain the Firth ran foaming down the narrow pass swift as an arrow dashing and breaking amid the rocks in one continual succession of waterfalls, overhung by brush wood and wild Horns(?). Stamford got us down the steep descent and placed upon a little point that jutted into the torrent. I beheld one of the most beautiful forms of river scenery but the deafening noises and rapid motion of the flood before me made the price of pleasure dizziness and alarm. Farther up the pass the road leads by Loch Lubnaig, surrounded by mountains covered with oak and the little valley well cultivated, a scene of great pastoral beauty. They were making hay, we only saw women at work who were tossing the grass about with their hands. In this valley is the house where Bruce wrote his Abyssinia. The wood all here abouts is chiefly oak and appears like small shoots from larger trees cut down. It is impossible to imagine anything more truly and uninterruptedly picturesque than the scenery here, the face of nature, the cottages, dress and manners of the inhabitants, the very cattle and dogs all are wild and romantick.

As we approached Loch Eamhead the country became more wild and barren and almost entirely divested of trees. Loch Eam is a lake of great extent but the mountains surrounding it are not particularly bold nor wooded. The village is wild and the house was uncomfortable, in my bed room there was a hole through the wall which admitted both light and air sufficient to starve me completely. The rest of the party went to see a waterfall in Lord Bredablanes grounds. I was too ill to stir.

 

30th August 1811 [page 88]

We left Loch Eamhead and travelled along the side of the lake for about seven miles to its terminus. We passed Dun Ira, Lord Melvilles prodigious plantations have been made and the situation is truly beautiful. We breakfasted at Comrie at a new inn. From thence we walked to Lord Melvilles grounds and up a beautiful glen to see a cascade called the Devils Cauldron. A narrow cleft in the rock down which the river bursts like a torrent of snow foaming against the lofty sides of the barrier. The Creiff is 4 miles from Comrie and seems a considerable Highland town. Here is a fine view towards Perth, or rather a view down a fine cultivated shaft, rather comfortable than lovely. After leaving Crieff there is a remarkably fine view from a hill looking down on the grounds of Ochtertyre, Sir D Bands. The country now becomes one barren track of mountain moor with nothing of beauty to distinguish it until by a tremendous descent the road at once enters Glen Almond. Two frowning mountains, black and barren cast their shadows upon the entrance rendering it still more gloomy and terrific. All is dark and lonely, no living thing, no waving tree, nothing but the sound of the footsteps and the running of the river there all alone undistracted and unvisited his Ossian a green mound and a huge stone surrounded by a turf wall moat his low and lonely urn. "As I thrown myself on the grave of the mountain poet here reposing peaceful in their bosom, I almost longed for a grave like his amid the solitude and quiet of the desert."

Leaving the glen and passing a few scattered hamlets and another barren moor we reached Anblane, one of a few wretched houses (adrift? Draft?) in this unpeopled waste, but unpeopled as it appeared it is not so in fact. At this inn were preparations made for a hundred people to celebrate the taking home of the bride after some months marriage. The woman of the house told us that the disorder would be too great to allow her to think of letting us sleep there. I went into the room and saw the splendid set out of plates and wooden spoons for the guests. The old people she told us would sleep in the house and the young ones shelter in the barns. We were therefore obliged to proceed to Dunkeld. The country must be fine at the latter part of the ride but it grew too dark for us to observe anything.

I am sorry to find on reading Mrs Grants translation of the Gaelic poem of the owl, that their traditions (turns? Sums?) against the opinion of Glen Almond being the place of Ossian's tomb.

On the turret of Famisi sit where the returning sun points his last beam upwards to the summit of the hill. 

I look on the end of Lock Trieg.

 The sheltering rock where the chair(?) was wont to be, 

I see the dark lakes dim at a distance, 

I see the mighty pile and many coloured mountain. 

I see on the deep vale the last dwelling of Ossian of Fingal.

I see the Hill of flat sepulchral stones.

 

It seems to me from Lock Laygan and Craig Guanich it would not be possible to see the Mountains of Glen Almond though the description so well agrees.

 

31st August 1811 [page 91]

The inn here is delightful, more clean and every comfort as complete as most of the best inns in England. We had a letter of introduction to Mr Irvine, the Minister. He came to us after breakfast. A man of wit, sense and observation. He walked all round the grounds with us.

Dunkeld lies in a deep valley watered by the Tay and surrounded by high mountains, one of which Birnam road(?) as some one says has never recovered its march to Dunsinane. Over the Tay the Duke of Athol has built a bridge which cost him £32,000 of which £4,000 only was allowed by government and the tolls do not exceed £5 or £600 a year. Before this it was a ferry. Fine woods of larch, fir and oak come sweeping down the mountain sides into the Tay. They are chiefly planted by the Duke of Athol. It is computed that if every tree allowing 1 in 3 for accidents were valued at 4d they would be worth £9 millions. These trees are many of them planted among inaccessible crags where the planters were obliged to be let down by ropes. This is certainly making a prodigious profit upon the land for the mountain ground lets only for about 2d and sometimes not quite a farthing an acre but the (cause?) in the valleys lets from 3£ to 4£-100. The Duke spent one year £100,000 pound though his income does not exceed £40 or £50,000 per annum. There are 50 miles of walk in the woods and 4,000 people kept in employ. The first object worth notice was Ossians Hall, it is a building in the french taste which hangs over a fine wild foaming cascade bursting over broken rocks interspersed with shrubs. There is not a (boise?) exhibition of taste in Britain. We walked through shady and beautiful paths to the (tumbling, rambling?) Brig a full over which a bridge is thrown, it is out of the Duke's grounds, it is a very fine cascade. As we walked back through the woods I saw a doe. They are plentiful here and quite wild but seldom to be seen after the dew of morning is off the grass. Mr Irvine took us to a high hill in the grounds commanding a magnificent view. At the foot of mountains cloathed with broken wood flows the Tay down a finely cultivated valley full of fine oak trees, the walk we took home by the side of this enchanting river exceeds in beauty anything of the kind I have seen. We saw a prodigious oak tree, magnificent of size, age and extent. As we came to the inn we passed the house which was poor. In the lawn are two larch trees, the first ever planted in Scotland and which were originally in pots put into the green house. Now they cloathe the bleak mountain tops.

We proceeded to Blair Athol, the road lies along a valley magnificent by its mountains and beautiful from the Tay running all along it. There is one remarkably fine view where the Tummel falls into the Tay. It is twenty miles from Dunkeld to Blair. This road the Duke travels twice a year with all his followers including cattle herds &c. Mr Irvine had given us a letter to a Mr Stewart Merchant at some village, its name I forget, in order that he might direct us to the falls of Tummel. We found a (intelligent crossed out) shrewd Scotchman in a little shop, behind the counter of which he stood and talked with the ease of a man of letters which I find he was. His son, a handsome young man elegantly dressed prepared to be our guide. As we waited for him I stood at the door sketching the people who were chattering Gaelic all round me. There was a fine wild girl on horseback and several old highlanders but they seemed none of them to like either my spectacles or my pencil. Leaving the horses to bait we went on to Faskally (Fascalli), the Bridge of Garry and Falls.  The young man told me that corn was got in there sooner than in the Lowlands because there was less rain. All who can afford it send their children to be educated at Perth. The character(?) of the (Eise?) language is difficult, he said his father could write it but there were few in the village besides him who could. He told me too that they had a great deal of poetry in their language "that woman's husband that you spoke to was a poet." Faskally is a very fine place, it belonged to Colonel Butters, he died early and the house stood deserted. There is nothing equal to the desolation of fine grounds run to ruin. By a most charming walk along the Banks of Garry and over its romantic bridge he led us through woods and braes to the falls of the roaring Tummel. These falls are not high but the body of water is very great and burst impetuously over the broken rocks. An amphitheatre of mountains and woods behind contribute greatly to its effect. We climbed a high hill to see the junction of Garry and Tummel. Stamford and I went on too fast and got lost in the woods and fields, we came to the twilight and silence, I can not describe the loneliness of the situation, however we walked on and scrambling over walks and hedges at length reached the bridge. Here we joined our party but heard the carriage was gone on - by mistake. I think I never was more astounded. We stood at the entrance of Killicrankie in the dusk, without the hope of stopping the carriage or getting forwards and when Stamford and young Stewart sent back to the place where it was left in hopes to meet with it, and we were alone, my heart quite sunk within me. The Pass of Killicrankie is a road along the side of a mountain which plunges down to the river Garry. On the other side rises one still steeper clothed with wood to the rim. By this light the depth appeared tremendous and the gloom indescribable. The carriage at last joined us and we proceeded to Blair through this (temous, famous?) pass which the dimness rendered still more striking. At Blair we found very tolerable accommodation.

 

1st September 1811, Sunday [page 96]

After breakfast we sent for the gardener and saw the Grounds. The house is poor but one storey was batter'd down in the rebellion. There is little natural wood and that chiefly Birch. Beyond Blair the country stretches into deer forest, vast tracks without a tree upon them where the Red deer live for they shunt the covert. The Duke has a forest 90 miles in extent to perfect which he destroyed 100 small farms. This indeed seems a needless destruction of comfort, the poor people go to Glasgow or some large town or emigrate. A large deer forest seems a great boast. At this time of the year the deer keeps(?) in their sanctuary and only come out to feed at night. The sleeps in a circle, fawns and does in the centre (Herts?) to each point of the compass, two stand up as guard. When they feed one as leader stands apart and stamps with his foot to sound the alarm. The last wolf was killed in Scotland 120 years ago in the pine forests of Aberdeen. Every Scotch estate has its glen, the one here is most beautiful. The river Tilt runs down it, as clear and as yellow as the finest amber. With every shrub of the mountain (feathering?) down the sides of the broken rocks two pretty tho' small cascades, one belonging to Colonel Robertson is very fine. The pleasure grounds are chiefly laid out in the French taste, vistas, statues &c. We walked down to the house and went into one of the offices to see some stags that had just been killed. When the Duke goes to hunt nearly 100 men are sent all about to rouse the deer, he conceals himself in the hush-wood and shoots at them as they pass. We saw two fine dogs between the grey hound and mastiff. The same as the dogs of Ossian. At the house an open table is kept, any gentleman who wishes to dine there sends his name, pays his compliments, and sits down. The gardener was a humorist, and I think a bit of a Jacobite. He said there was many a good Jacobite heart yet among them. There is an old bed rid man that fought at the battle of Culloden. He is nearly Bedfast but his heart will rise at the mention of it, he never thinks he has got satisfaction for it yet doesn't that man. The Highlander he said, with fair play would have beat the English, but Lord G Murray sent three of the best clans a hunting the Grohson(?) a Fools errand, McGuires, McDonalds, McGregors. The Jacobites all go to the Church of England meeting house. Father and son at the rebellion usually took different sides at all events to secure the estate in the family. This ought to be a lesson to all leaders of such enterprises, that a bold stroke must be struck at first to secure the calculating party. Nothing ever in this case is gained by delay and everything lost by retreat. A first success and a character of good fortune must be on the side of an invader or it is impossible he should gain anything. Mr Irvine told us that the 42nd was a most favourite regiment here about and (the Marquis of Hartly crossed out) it is called the Black Watch, being originally raised to watch thieves. Promotion from the ranks is very common in it.

Leaving Blair we came back upon our steps as far a Logierait. I did not find Killicrankie quite so fine as I thought it the night before. Being Sunday all the Highlanders were in their best cloathes. The girls (set?) their hair tied up with hoods(?). These are ribbons, generally brown or black crossed round the head and tied on one side and were the ribbons less universally old and shabby would have a pleasing effect, but in general I must say there are few feasts in England I have seen where men, women and children are so universally well and respectably dressed. At Logierait we crossed the Tummel which is here an impetuous torrent and though it was in boats is rather tremendous. A beautiful evening and the scenery very lovely. The two little boys who assisted the ferry man were uncommonly fine lively children and one of the men was the handsomest I ever saw. The country all about here is well cultivated in corn which is ripe here sooner than in the Lowlands. We passed through Strath Tay to Weem, all this country very well cultivated and peopled.

 

2nd September 1811, Monday [page 100]

Left Weem which is a very comfortable house, I was a good deal amused with our visitor, a boy of fifteen or sixteen in his kilt. On our way to Kenmore we stopped to see the Falls of Moness near Aberfeldie. In my opinion the most beautiful we saw, they break from a great height down the glen over hung with every variety of underwood and formed by the broken rocks into all forms of waterfall. Kenmore stands exactly at the last end of Loch Tay, and is a decent village. The inn comfortable. Lord Breadalbane's property lies all round to the extent of many miles, his place, Taymouth is close to Kenmore. Here the Tay falls into the Lock. The woods are very fine, of the water it is needless to speak, but a vile french taste has done its best to spoil these noble works of nature. There is a bridge where the river flows into the Loch from whence the view is most beautiful. JSC and I stood here sketching for some time for the day was delightfully warm and sunny. I was much interested with the curiosity of a swarm of children just let loose from school who were pushing round me and twitching my paper to see what I was at.

After dinner on our road to Killin, we went to see the Fall of Acam in a glen of Lord Bredalbane's (Breadalbane). Here is a rude root house built and hung with skins of wild cats, foxes, deer &c. Those of the former were of an astonishing size. From a window the view falls full upon the cascade which breaks from a dark cavern hung with oak and birch at the top and falls in one full dash to the bottom. When the torrent is swelled the effect must be wonderful but now it was divided into two streams and showed the rock between. We got, with some difficulty, to the bottom where the effect is still finer. Returning to the carriage I observed two women without shoes or stockings and their petticoats held above their knees washing in a tub with their feet. The ride all along this Loch Tay to Killin which stands along the other end, is most extraordinarily beautiful. By the time we reached the end of it the sun was gone down and the sky formed a golden relief to the dark black giant mountains that rose on all sides. As we turned to Killin we seemed entering into their bosom and the effect was awful beyond description. About a mile from the town, by the light of a full moon we crossed two broken bridges over the wildest rocky torrent in nature, all (bruised?) torn and in confusion and by this twilight appearing still more broken and confused. The effect was melancholy for we seemed to be come to a world in ruins. At Killin we had very tolerable accommodations. I was struck this day with seeing a less comfortable appearance among the people, less of dignity in the character of the men and more of squalidness in the appearance of the children who were opening the gates for pence. But one girl threw nuts into the carriage and when I offered her money said "I did na want that."

 

3rd September 1811, Tuesday (page 103)

Mr McDougal, the Minister, breakfasted with us, he was a civil man with some faint traces of the beau lurking under his rusty black coat but there was nothing of the senses and spirit of Mr Irvine. He took us by a most agreeable walk up a mountain behind Killin from whence is a very fine view of the lake. At the foot of this I found the Spina Salicifolia. On our return we found several pieces of rock chrystal at the inn to be sold which the boys find or knock out of the rocks. They wished to pass them for Cairn Gorms but these properly are only found on the mountain of that name. As we passed the torrent and ruined bridge leading out of Killin my again on our way to Tyndrum I thought it much less striking than by the moonlight. We went to see the burying place of the MacNabs, but I saw little worth looking at. It consisted of four walls forming an oblong which was unroofed. There was a rude curious carving over the door. I looked through a window into it and could see no traces of anything like monuments. Soon after we left Killin we entered a wild desolate country without habitation or having animal to break the unvaried extent of heath and hill. It seemed as if we had passed the confines of the habited world and entered upon a heathy desert. some miles from Killin on the left observed some ruinous remains. Stone pillars with a kind of white triangular had to them. Farther on, on the right in the centre of a lovely little lake is an island cloathed with waving shrubs, are the ruins of St Killan's Monastery. The mountains of this wilderness are majestic and give a grandeur and interest to barrenness and desolation. I observed the roots and remains of large trees in the bogs and imagine this has been once a fine forest. Tyndrum stands almost alone in this dreary waste. The accommodations are certainly far from inviting but still are tolerable. Our beds were in two cupboards in the sitting room. There was incessant noise and confusion during the night.

 

4th September 1811, Wednesday (page 104)

We left Tyndrum before breakfast intending to stop at Inverarnan, our road lay through the same desolate scenery, the mountains unceasing in majesty as we advanced. A little before we reached Inver I saw a small lake on which grew a considerable number of fir trees. The house we at last reached was a wretched hut. And to complete our dismay at its appearance the only room was occupied as a bedroom by two gentlemen shooters. We got a little bread and milk, good enough and the strangers sent us a brace of moor fowl to console us. Then we wandered over hill upon hill through the same fine wild and craggy region "where mountains upon mountains hurled the ruins of an earlier world." There is one dark large called the black mountain, particularly fine. At a distance we saw Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland. Till we reached a lone house where all was dirt and discomfort and got a wretched breakfast. Kings house is16 miles from Tyndrum. While the horses rested Eliza and I tried to get to the foot of a mountain that was close by. I was quite surprised at the deception. After walking a very long time we found ourselves to all appearances just as near as when we set out. The ground we travelled over was boggy and stony with dry tufts from one to another of which we skipped along. There seems no hope of its ever being cultivated. There were cows however, feeding. After travelling a mile from King house we plunged by a steep and almost impracticable descent into the deep gloomy pass of Glenco. Prodigious mountains far above the clouds hang threatening over the entrance and closing it all round at their feet runs a little river and round it a few cultivated enclosures. Here in the bosom of the mountain was the horrid massacre committed that stained the reign of William forever and here with the Highlander we are tempted to execrate the man who drove the Stewarts from their throne. Were it possible to describe the sublimity and terror of this magnificent scene I would try to hold it up to my memory. The crows and birds seemed flying at the foot of the towering cliffs every now and then we fancied we heard the scream of the Eagles which build here but we saw none. All the rest was perfect unbroken silence and repose. In the middle of the glen the river forms a little lake. Passing by this the road takes a turn and then the glen opens to a cultivated wooded valley which was all smiling in the evening sun. Little shrubby hillocks and gay green of the fields contrast so admirably with the darkness and honor of the Glen behind, that I am tempted to call this beautiful surprise the best worth seeing of any scene in Scotland. This enchanting valley terminated on the shores of Lock Leven. After passing through so many miles of the barren solitude of heathy mountains it was no little pleasure to come again to a world of cultivation. I felt as if I was almost surprised to find houses and people employed as usual beyond this barren tract. Here at the head of the lake is a considerable slate quarry and a small vessel was lying before it ready to take its cargo. All this gave an air of business which formed a very pleasing contrast. We went about a mile up the lake. On the banks a good many scattered cabins. We stopt at Ballychulish where is a ferry to the Inverness side of the lake and a tolerable inn. A strange kind of landlady with more of the Irish than Scotch character about her made us very welcome. The house smelt shockingly of Fish but in other respects was comfortable, at least as well as we could expect here. The views all this evening when the sky behind the dark mountains was red with the setting sun were most beautiful. At the end of the Loch are the mountains of Marvein, the forms are very fine.

 

5th September 1811, Thursday   (page 108)

A lovely morning. We walked a good deal about Ballyhulis, all here about seems very well peopled. The inhabitants carry on a considerable fishery of one my judge by the number of nets drying on the shore. This is a salt water loch. The tide was gone down which a good deal spoiled the effect. After leaving Bullychulish the road we took lay by the side of the lake, the views all down which are most magnificent and beautiful. When we arrived nearly at the end we crossed a small angle inland and came upon the shores of Loch Lennhe. This lake is very broad with several large islands. The opposite shore is composed of fine rugged mountains with tops above the clouds. All this by the blue expanse of morning light on a very clear day, the mountains tented with the most (glorious crossed out) lovely variety of colours formed the most delightful view in the world. On the shores stands Appin House, Marquis of Tweedale, grounds fine, the situation is incomparable. Pretty nearly opposite to the island of Lismore I saw an old castle built upon a small island perhaps a hundred yards from the shore. Its size was larger than those I have usually seen in Scotland. We now again travelled inward for a short time and then came to the shores of Loch Creran. Here there was a ferry of a mile broad to cross. We were soon placed in a little boat and two fine handsome (gaels crossed out) youths, wild and spirited and active were in with us and we were across in a moment. On the banks on both sides stood too very neat looking white (have? Houses?) and the man who had the direction of the ferry spoke English perfectly but the others were all truly Gaelic. I was much amused with the scene for the large boat happened to be on the other side and they lighted a fire to signal for it. On the southern shore I sat down to sketch and looking to the side we had left saw the loveliest scene that can be described, the banks were finely wooded from the serene expanse of water and the mountains behind them melted into all shades of colour and distance the softest liens of mingled blue and pink under a fine calm heaven. I indulged the most delightful feeling of admiration mingled with surprise to find myself in this far distant land among foreigners and strangers. Children gathered round me and threw a profusion of nuts into my lap. While I was sitting here a boy of genteel appearance came riding along on his little poney, and as he waited for our ferry boat entered into conversation. He came from the lakes in Inverness shire, was by his dress, appearance and manner a perfect gentleman, and gave us a good deal of information about the adjacent country. He had been from Connel Ferry that morning and was to cross at Ballychulish and return home that day. His dress seemed to have been selected by a careful mother, but the independence with which he and his poney travelled alone is either a proof of general good sense in the management of boys of condition here or of individual good sense in his parents. He gave us some specimens of the vitrified forts (fosts?) after which we were very curious. After long waiting they at last get us the carriage over, we took leave of our intelligent companion who dragged his horse into the boat, chattering Gaelic to the women and children. One of these I remarked an old ragged looking cantingfarning(?) creature so unlike in all respects to the general spirit of the people that I suspect she must be Irish but what she could come to this poor place to cant and fawn for I cannot guess. We left Loch Creran and after some miles and passing the grounds of General Campbell beautifully situated on a high promontory came to the shores of a spacious bay at the head of which stand the remains of Heregonium. I know nothing and can learn nothing of the nations who possessed these gigantic remains. They seem buried in eternal oblivion and have left the work of giants to perpetuate their existence. About the breadth of a turnpike road from the sea rises what appears a huge cliff shaped into forms of (mole?) towers and bells, at the top is grass and the ground rises in artificial terraces one above the other and in the centre is a break as if for an entrance. This is what is called the tower, about a hundred yards to the North of this following the bend of the shore stands a single rock communicating with the other by a paved road. At the top this too is grassy. We clambered up and found here the remains of the vitrified (fools, tools fosts?). The only appearance of building was stones about the height of six inches from the ground placed in an hexagonal or octagonal form. Pieces of the vitrified stones were scattered, however, all about. What this substance is, whether artificially or accidentally formed is yet an undecided question. We could find nothing remarkable here besides. The ground was perfectly flattened where the (fost, fort?) was and the sides very steep. This is supposed to have been the castle. When we came to examine the sides of the great rock we found it entirely composed of pebbles and pieces of stone in a white bed which looked very like mortar. I think this must be an artificial substance though the work is so enormous, vast heaps of the same material had fallen off and lay on the shore. If this be really a human work it is the labour of a powerful people. These were no tribe of wandering savages but a collected society. I have been able to meet with no account of this place, or of the nation by whom it was formed. The situation is admirably chosen, commanding the fine bay and the adjoining country. I much regretted the lateness of the evening which obliged us to proceed before I was half satisfied. As we went on we saw many remains of trenches in the flat but of these my memory now gives me no distinct idea. At Conal Ferry on the shores of Loch Etive we found a neat house newly built. Here there was no bread but good biscuit. This is the first time we found the want of it though we were often at the last loaf. Bread is conveyed into these solitary parts by the post man, who travels on foot generally, therefore the supply cannot but be small.

 

6th September 1811, Friday (page 113)

Very comfortable beds. Directly after breakfast we crossed the ferry of Loch Etive. From the house were very fine views of the mountains of Mull which are grander than any I have seen. At a small distance, built upon a promontory stand the ruins of Dunstaffrage of which the remains are great. This was a large castle than any I have seen. They are usually only single square towers. This was a large building, more like the Welsh Castles. We did not go to examine it. It is curious that this and Besegonium should so much exceed in importance any other ruins in this part of Scotland. In Loch Etiva when the tide retires as we understood from the ferry man, is a fine fall that is very much visited. Travelers would find it well worth while to arrange their plans so as to visit but this we could not do. Our road lay but a few miles from Oban but from what we could gather it would not repay the trouble of visiting. We passed Bun Awe which lies on the shores of Loch (blank) and is a considerable village. There is much more wood and brush wood upon the road than we usually met with but the mountains and general scenery diminishes greatly in interest and grandeur. The inhabitants on this side differ in the form of their caps and in the building of their cottages from those on the eastern and interior part of Scotland. The cottages are roofed with ropes here. Their general appearance is entirely different I should be apt to suspect this difference is not merely accidental and that the maritime inhabitants of the western coast might claim different ancestors. In this opinion the peculiarity of their remains enervages(?) me. We came to the shores of Loch Awe. These were pretty well cultivated and inhabited. Loch Awe here is very narrow and the scenery not striking, at least after what we had passed. We crossed the ferry to Port Sonachan with the horses. I thought this very disagreeable. At this house we got bread and cheese. I thought it uncomfortable. One of the horses lost its shoe in the bustle of getting into the boat. We had to go on to the west village before this loss could be repaired. We therefore walked, the road lay through a copse where were growing abundance of ripe nuts. There was also a large plantation of firs and larches, where was a waterfall but the day being exceedingly hot I was so tired that I did not go to see it. Then the country became barren. From a hill at the foot of which lies this village whose names I have forgot. There is a fine view upon the lake. I believe Lock Awe further up is reckoned the most beautiful in the country, from its variety of islands on which are ruins. The country lost its barren appearance as we approached Inverary and became well cultivated with fir(?) trees and plantations and much more general comfort. A short way from the town we went to see a cascade in the Duke's grounds, very well worth seeing. It was dark when we came to the inn which is here good and comfortable.

 

7th September 1811, Saturday (page 115)

Inverary stands on the shores of Loch Tyne and is no inconsiderable place. We went to see the grounds and castle, this last built in imitation of the Gothic but with strange inconsistency, has got a glass door. At the Grand entrance, about which there is nothing at all striking as you come down the avenue, the rooms were in the french taste and not remarkable. The grounds are finely wooded, the trees noble and well placed, and the view of the Loch and mountains give it peculiar beauty. We coasted the lake to its head. About a mile from Inverary there is a very fine view back again upon the town. We went by a very old house belonging to, who I forget, but to some of the Campbells. It was large with many gable ends. The country all here is very barren. We stopped at Cairndow to rest the horses and found an exceedingly comfortable inn. Then we plunged among the mountains and came down Rest and be Thankful, into Gleneroe. A mountain seems entirely to block up the entrance into this glen down which a road was cut by the soldiery by means of its windings the descent is rendered practicable. At the top is a seat and stone on which is the well known inscription. As Eliza and I walked down we could not help thinking upon the absolute impossibility of subduing a nation in these fastnesses who had resolution to defend them. These mountains have no boldness, they are large without being magnificent. To those who have seen Glencoe this is nothing. We came down to Loch Long and then coasting it a short way crossed at the head and came to Aroguhar (Arrochar?). Here is a good inn and a tolerable village. About sunset we walked down the lake, the opposite mountains with the red light behind them were very grand. The road we took romantic in the extreme. I shall remember always with pleasure the effect of some girls and cattle that we met upon this beautiful walk.

 

8th September 1811, Sunday(page 117)

We left Arroguhar early, that we might reach Luss to breakfast, where we came down to Loch Lomond. The lake is narrow, the opposite mountains very fine. We passed Tarbet and were beginning to enjoy some delightful views when a thick fog obscured every object and we got to Luss no more edified than if we had travelled through London in November. At Luss the inn was full of company. We got but uncomfortably situated in a small parlour but cared for nothing provided the fog would clear. About twelve o'clock we got down to the shores of the Lake and saw an unrivalled prospect, the finest sun was sparkling upon the expanse of water and distant mountains. The town was all gay with people dressed for Church. Everything seemed smiling and happy. We went to Kirk and heard Dr Stewart. The place was crowded to overflowing. The service was monotonous and ill delivered. I was struck with the singularity of the preacher taking out his watch at the conclusion of the sermon and saying as the time pressed he would put the rest off. After the English service there is always one in Latin Gaelic. To this I saw a good many old men and women in the venerable ancient costume coming. After service we went to a slate quarry about half a mile below Luss to which the Tytler directed us. I clambered up to a great height upon the hill behind it and there saw this magnificent water with all its crowd of islands spread in a sheet before me. I was so high above all that I saw the islands as from a birds eye view and the shores all round. The infinite variety of their green forms, the tints of the mountains, the clear blue of the lake and sky, altogether it was the most delightful sight I ever in my life beheld. We had a letter to Dr Stewart and went down to deliver it. They were coming out of Kirk, he and his wife, a sweet lovely woman and a very pretty daughter. They received us almost with open arms and every kind offer and every kind expression were lavished upon us and they pressed us to take dinner, beds, supper, tea, everything. We agreed to drink tea there. I never saw such hospitable kindness of manner, such grace, ease and a nature united as in Mrs Stewart. Dr Stewart got a boatman for us to go on the water and apologised for not going with us as it was Sunday. We left them to take our row. For some way the water was not deep. The bottom mossy and as the water was perfectly transparent if was the prettiest deception in the world for it seemed a ground of sparkling emerald and gold. The most beautiful dwelling of the water, my nymphs, as the water deepened we last this gay scene below. We first went to a large island called Inch Tavannach. Here is a very high point entirely wooded, from the summit of which we saw a most beautiful view though inferior to that from the slate quarry. We came down and went through a creek between this and another island and returned most sincerely sorry that we could not stay longer. Between five and six HEC and I went a good way up a mountain at the back of the Tarbet end of Luss. The sun was set behind the hills and the reflection of the various lights upon the lake, mountains, islands was exquisite. We went directly after dinner to Dr Stewarts and spent a delightful evening. It gave me a very high idea of the comforts and virtues of a Highland pastors household. Plenty and simplicity in the ('household' crossed out) ménage and nature and refinement in the manners. I should think this the happiest life in the world and the best fitted to virtue. Mrs Stewart was lively and very intelligent and told us several entertaining stories admirably well. There is an island in the Lake in which they put people who are rather crazy or too fond of whiskey, for this she described some as having a passion which approached to madness and can be equaled by nothing but by that of the turks for opium. In this place all retired as it is, Dr Stewart has an opportunity of seeing many eminent people who come to stay a day or two on the shores of the Lake, among others he mentioned Burke, who formed an acquaintance with a humorous whiskey drinker of the name of Humphrey Colquhoun. Dr Stewart described his conversation with this man as infinitely entertaining. As we went home Dr Stewart shewed us the Comet which is excessively beautiful now. Loch Lomond is 30 miles long and sixteen (nine) wide in the broadest part, the largest island is a mile long, some of the islands contain wild goats and most red deer which swim from island to island. In some swampy places there are large serpents which are sometimes seen swimming across the creeks. The boatman's account of them was terrible, but I think exaggerated. Ben Lomond is the largest mountain on the shores of Loch Lomond, from its top Ireland and the Isle of Man are seen. It is not difficult of access and on it are many rare plants.

 

9th September 1811, Monday (page 121)

It is the best plan to row to the outlet of the Lake Leven water and thence to Dumbarton, but this we could not do. The ride by the shores of Lake is very beautiful, go through Linton, a neat and populous village. Here is Smollets monument, a pillar. All the country here is very well cultivated and peopled. Dunbarton is very striking. One large insulated rock with fortifications at the top stands in the middle of a plain. I ought to say two rocks for there is a chasm divides down for some way. The Clyde flows at its feet here, very broad and salt water I believe, at least it has considerable tides. Unfortunately the water was out when we were there. The town is large and prosperous. We immediately went to the Castle. Here are barracks for invalids. We were taken up a narrow stair case cut in a passage between the rocks scarce wide enough for two to go abreast. This carries up to nearly the top of the lowest point. The highest is not now visited. Sheep feed there and strangers frighten them down the precipice. From this lowest point however, the view is glorious. The broad Clyde and hills behind it. Greenoch, Port Glasgow, Foseneath. On another side the steep precipices of Dun Glass and to the North last the view back to Loch Lomond. Here you are shown the place where Captain Crawford entered, the rock he must have climbed is very steep and prodigiously high. In the Guard room when we came down they shewed us Wallace's sword of an amazing size and to be used with two hands and the skin of a Pearch(?) who lived in the well or many years without any known nourishment.

 

The Soldiers Dream (different handwriting?)

 

Our Bugles sung truce for the for the night had been cloud, 

And the centinal Stars set their watch in the sky, 

when thousands had sunk to the ground overpowered,

The weary to sleep and the wounded to die. 

 

We reposing that night on my Pallet of Straw

By the Wolf sharing faggot that guarded the stair(?)

At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice e'er the cock crew I dreamt it again. 

 

We thought from the Battles fields dreadful array,

Far far I had roamed on a desolate track

Till Autumn and sunshine arose on the way,

To the house of my Father's that welcomed me back.

 

I flew to the pleasant fields travers'd so oft

In life' morning march when my bosom was young,

I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft

And I knew the sweet strain that the corn reaper sung

 

Then pledged we the wine cup and fondly I swore,

From my home and my weeping friends never to part,

My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.

 

Stay stay, with us rest, thou art weary I worn,

And fain was their war broken soldier to stay

But sorrow returned with the drawing of more 

And the voice of my dreaming ear melted away. 

 

The ride to Glasgow is very much the same as the approach to any of our large manufacturing towns in England. There is nothing of the dreary grandeur of Edinburgh and seated among her magnificent Barons neat country houses, gardens, plantations, hedges and trees all this is the sign of plenty, care and improvement and as such I suppose we must be glad to see it, though beauty and nature must vanish for ever. Glasgow is first as like the new town of Edinburgh as a house of two stories on a flat is like a house of three on a hill. The new houses are of stone, very regular.

 

10th September 1811, Tuesday (page 125)

Walked about Glasgow, went to the old part of the town up the Irongate. The Tolbooth is a fine building, opposite stands a fine statue of King William on horse back. We walked about the town to the green. I don't like walking about town, it was hot and dirty work (rock?) here and I could not look about me. We went to the High Church, it is a large pile, not remarkable for beauty, now divided into two places for service. The church yard is almost walled with ancient tombs and monuments. Went to the College, the most gloomy abode in the nastiest street I ever beheld. Black and melancholy and fit only to be inhabited by monks of La Trappe. We came here to see the Hunters museum. This is not opened till midday. They locked Stamford and me I into what they call the College Gardens to wait. These gardens are a large grass slope bounded at the bottom by a stream which seems to have washed Glasgow and is blacker than Styx. Down to this are walks shaded by dismal birch withering in smoke and one side a black wall that might confine hat works, such are the College Gardens. The Hunter's Museum contained very little to interest me. Birds, fishes and beasts, of course the fossils must be very valuable. There are some pictures. I was most pleased with the two beautiful illuminated manuscripts, Hebrew and John, the writing of these things is wonderful and the colours of the illuminations, particularly the blue finer than any one meets with now. I wonder whether the art is lost. What a labour these must have cost? After dinner we went on to Hamilton, the country is flat but well cultivated and wooded.

 

11th September 1811, Wednesday (page 127)

Went to see Hamilton Palace. The apartments are very splendid but one great house so nearly resembles another that I cannot keep a distinct remembrance in my head. The principal rooms are covered with pictures. I was struck with the beauty of many but I cannot now recollect any one but Daniel in the Lions Den by Rubens. The animals are reckoned very fine. Of this I did not attempt to judge. I thought them admirably well grouped and thrown round the figure of Daniel who attracted my attention by far the most. He is sitting on a stone with his hands clasped in an attitude of shuddering natural horror with great acquired firmness. His face is cast up with more of enthusiasm than resignation and little of hope. I have never seen anything pictured that so much interested and affected me. It is worth while to go a long way to see this striking picture. Hamilton is now occupied by the Marquis of Donglass. The road from Hamilton to Lanark is reckoned very fine, I cannot say it struck me much. A short way from Lanark we stopped to see Stone Byres, the first fall of the Clyde which runs by the road almost all the way. This is a fine fall but we are now going down the degrees of sublimity and perhaps are hardly inclined to do justice. After this a very high hill is ascended. Before reaching Lanark which plunges into a deep valley and is curious looking. Larnark is a considerable place, every one knows that just below on the banks of the Clyde are large cotton works. We walked through Lady (blank) grounds to CoreLian. The mass of water and breadth of rocks make this a very fine Fall, and the banks of the river are cloathed with wood, but it is neither so wild, so foaming or so turbulent as the roaming Tummel or dashing Mooness. On the opposite rock stands the castle of Iona. My Aunt and Eliza went to Bonnington (Bonniton?) Fall. In the meantime I walked with Stamford to Braxfield to call upon Miss Dales. After this we went to Cartland Craigs. This is a very deep rocky Glen which is seen from the top of tremendous height. As in all the others, a stream runs down it. This is very well worth seeing but when I think of how weary, hungry and sick I was in this walk and impatient to get home to rest and dinner I determine never to be surprised at the negligence of travelers. It only astonishes me that so much is seen by the fashionable and described by the indolent.

 

12th September 1811, Thursday (page 129)

We here parted with Stamford, he to return home, we to go to the sea. Early in the morning we set off for Biggar. The country is in general barren and poorly cultivated though with some good exceptions. To Peebles, the same, just before entering the town however, descending a hill there is a very pretty view of the Tweed and this beautiful town and church and castle. All the way from Peebles to Melrose is wild with some fine views of the Tweed. We passed Gallashiels again, and found as we retraced our steps every object sensibly diminished in size and beauty. Came to Melrose in the evening and immediately went to the Abbey. After the miracles of Nature even those of art appear worthless and insignificant. This sublime ruin was no longer to me what I had thought it on entering Scotland. As we came along the road this evening we over took a party of men dressed in black carrying a coffin in the middle of them. They were burying it in the Abbey yard as we came in. No obsequies. Not a word of regret. Not a prayer of recommendation to the traveler beginning his awful journey. As a dog without sign of religion or friendship the Scotch Presbyterian is buried. (x) ( I have heard since that the Service is performed in the dead man's room) The man who shews the ruin is very ingenious and has taught himself to sketch. He took us through a small house into his bed room where his drawing things were. Here were sketches executed by himself, some he valued at a guinea. I thought this a fair specimen of the character of the Nation.

 

13th September 1811, Friday (page 130)

Before it was quite light we left Melrose for Kelso. The morning was misty, otherwise the ride would have been pleasant. We passed Dryburgh Abbey whose ruins are, I believe, superior to Melrose. It lies on the opposite side the road. Owing to the restiveness of the horses we got out and went into a cottage. It was not so tidy as many English ones but not distinguished for dirt and the rooms large and light.

Kelso is most beautiful, on the banks of the Tweed and (Tevit?) which join just before reaching the town. Few things can be more beautiful than their high and woody banks. From the bridge and from the public library the views are very fine. Here too are the ruins of an old Cathedral, round arches, very ancient and I thought the architecture striking. We had only a slight view, being in haste. The ride from Kelso to Coldstream chiefly along the banks of the Tweed, though neither grand or wild, is beautiful. Coldstream is the border town. The carriage breaking, while it was mended Eliza and I went to the fine bridge across the Tweed to take our farewell of Scotland. It was a beautiful day and this delightful spot left an agreeable impression of the land we were leaving. I felt a good deal of regret that my pleasant expedition was over, yet I welcomed my own country with all my heart. The carriage joined us, we drove over the bridge and thus entered England and completed our tour.

Since I set out I have seen much. It has been chiefly of places on which little reflection can be made yet it has considerably enlarged my ideas and given me just notions of many things on which I was before much deceived. The general aspect of mountains and mountain scenery in general and of the lakes disappointed me. I had formed my ideas of the first from Mrs Hatcliffe who descriptions are anything but natural. Her magnificent mountains on which I fancied whole tracks of country stretched out in forests, plains, cliffs and peaks give a very false idea of a mountainous district which appears to the eye like wide plains broken into vast heaps of deep ravines but not like the prodigious contrived ascent I fancied. The lakes disappointed like the mountains chiefly from a want of magnificence. In the trees and precipices. It is of use to correct these imaginary views of things. Till this is done Nature is beautiful in vain. What I chiefly admire in Scotland particularly the Highlands, is the perfection of wildness; the eye is never struck on the fancy recalled by the vulgarity of common life; here all is nature pure and uncultivated and among the people all wild and uncommon; but this is fast wearing away and those who wish to see Scotland in its nature beauty must make haste before policy has converted the sons of the Gael into English labourers and manufacturers.

I do not recollect the stages to Newcastle. The country through which we travelled is barren and mountainous without trees or enclosures. We came to Newcastle about eleven at night.

 

14th September 1811, Saturday (page 134)

At Mr Turners, we went to see the shot tower and lead works and coal works.

 

15th September 1811, Sunday

To Chapel, called at Mr Nanlins.

 

16th September 1811, Monday

To a Laneaters school established here containing 500. To the Glass works. Called at Mrs Griffiths.

 

17th September 1811, Tuesday

After three most agreeable days left Newcastle, to Sunderland. The bridge, the Iron work light and beautiful, but the general effect much spoiled by the heavy stone work to which it is fastened to Castle Eden. Down Eden Deane, a deep magnificent glen, leading to the sea. It is indeed well worth visiting. We only walked down a little way. To Hartlepool, the works here are famous. (pencil sketch of a bridge or arch?)  but the tide being up and we in haste we saw little of beauty. To Stockton, a very pretty town upon the Tees, the place is considerable, the principal street one continual row of good houses. To Redcarthe, first part pretty, the last we performed in the dark. Here we established ourselves for a short time.

 

30th September 1811

Drank tea with a party at Mrs Yorkes. 

 

1st October 1811

Set out home. Carriage broke down. Came back, found H. Turner, dined, set out again. Through Stockton to Tontine Inn.

 

2nd October 1811

To Thirsk. Carrige broke down again. Fine country. To Borough bridge, in a field near saw the devils arrows about 28ft high. Large black stones rudely cut like arrows at the top. To Knaresborough, the chopping well enchanting. Situation old castle which we did not see. Through Harrogate to Harewood, where we slept.

 

3rd October 1811

Saw Harewood. Through Leeds and Bradford to Stockley Green, very curious country, broken into deep plunging valleys. Dr Thomson dined with us.

 

4th October 1811

Walked  to Halifax to Mr Edwardes. Dr Thomson dined. 

 

5th October 1811

Came home by Manchester. Found Jos and Charlotte Wedgwood at Linley Wood.

 

6th October 1811

Jos. Wedgwood left.

 

7th October 1811

Mr Rawson came to shoot. Charlotte and M Darwin went. 

 

8th October 1811

Mr Rawson went.

 

9th October 1811

JSC to Dorfold. Mama and Papa to Stoney Field.

 

10th October 1811

They returned.

 

12th October 1811

Stamford returned.

 

14th October 1811

Mr and Mrs Rawson, E. Bent, E. Rawson dined here.

 

15th October 1811

Miss Fletchers, Mr Griffin came.

 

16th October 1811

Mr Griffin went. Mr H Tomkinson came.

 

17th October 1811

Miss Fletchers went. Mr Butt came. 

 

18th October 1811

Mr Butt went, my Aunt and Emma to Bostock.

 

21st October 1811

They returned bringing Miss France and Miss Noble. Mr(s?) Blunt and John dined here. 

 

23rd October 1811

Eliza went to Southend with L.W. to see Miss and Mrs John Wedgwood. Miss Potts came. JSC went. 

 

26th October 1811

Dr Holland came.

 

27th October 1811

Dr Holland went on to Maer. Mrs, Miss and Caroline Crompton came.

 

28th October 1811

My Aunt took Miss Noble to Knutsford and Ellen, Elizabeth and Tom France came to fetch home Sarah. Dr H returned.

 

30th October 1811

He went. Mrs Crompton called at Basford.

 

5th November 1811, Tuesday

Dr Crompton came. Mrs Bent and Eliza called.

 

9th November 1811

Dr Crompton came to Bostock.

 

10th November 1811

He returned.

 

11th November 1811

He went.

 

14th November 1811

Miss Potts went. H. Crompton came.

 

15th November 1811

The Cromptons went. My Aunt L and MEC to Parkfield.

 

21st November 1811

Mary and I went to the fashions. HS, L and ME came here. 

 

22nd November 1811

Mrs Lawton called.

 

26th November 1811

My Uncle came.

 

27th November 1811

Mr Spode dined here.

 

28th November 1811

My Uncle went. We went to the Assembly, Lousia's debut. Brought Eliza home from South end. Mrs Lawton went with us. Papa and Mr L Bent to Liverpool.

 

1st December 1811, Sunday

William Bent dined here. 

 

4th December 1811

Mr and Mrs Jos Wedgwood, Elizabeth and Mr Carr dined here.

 

5th December 1811

Mr Carr and Mr L went.

 

6th December 1811

Mrs L and Elizabeth went.

 

8th December 1811 (page 138)

Mr Bent and Papa came home.

 

17th December 1811

I went with Louisa and Emma to Burslem.

 

21st December 1811

We returned home.

 

23rd December 1811

Mama, Papa and Mary to Nantwich.

 

25th December 1811

Xmas day, W Bent called on us.

 

26th December 1811

They returned from Nantwich.

 

27th December 1811

The Assembly, my Aunt and Mr Jos Wedgwood stewards. 

 

29th December 1811

William Bent dined here.

 

30th December 1811

I went with Mama and Papa to Parkfield. Mr Rickets, Mrs and Mrs Robinson, Major and Mrs Orange dined there.

 

31st December 1811

Mr Butt dined with us. In the yd evening we returned and found Miss (Grey, Georgina?) Leth at Linley Wood.

 

 

 

 

 

Lui sait aimer a la possibilite d'avoir tous les gouts et les gouts de tous les ages c'est le premier element qui peut se transformer dans tous les autres.

Il faut bien que les homes aient quelque fois occasion de lutter contre la nature pour connaitre les forces de leur ame et pour les augmenter c'est l'image de Jacob lullant contre une ange que l'homme luttant avec la doulear le corps reste loiteux mais l'ame est annoblie.

Il ne faut jammais s'approcher des defauts quiavoisines nos gouts et notre tour d'esprit car la contagion nait toujours desrapports ceci s'applique a la vertu comme a lesput aux hoses comme aux personnes.

L'on a dit il y a long temps que les objets es te ricars influoit sur nos pensees et sur notre carracture mais l'on n'a jamais assez pense avec quelle magilapensee et la charactere influent sur les objets esterieurs.

Quand on pense plus qu'on ne parle on sent  - (continues French page 140-144)

Penses de Mad (Fechar?) 

 

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, to slowly trace the forests shady scene, where things that own not man's domain dwell, and mortal foot hath ne'er, or hardly been, to climb the trackless mountain all unseen, with the wild flock that never needs a fold, alone o'er steep and foaming falls to hear, this is not solitude, t'is but to hold stones unrolled,

Converse with natures charms and see her but midst the crowd the hum, the shock of men to hear, to see, to feel and to possess, and roam along the worlds tired denizen with none who bless us, none who we can bless. Minions of splendour shrinking from distress, nonethat with kindred consciousness endured, if we were not would seem to smile the less of all that flattered followed sought and (seen?) this is to be alone, this is solitude.

 

Still will thou dream on future joy and woe, Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies, that little urn saith more than thousand homeless(?) - (continues)

Crabbes letes the Patron. 

 

Ah me for aught that I would ever -

Or ever hear by tale or history,

The course of fine love never did run smooth

But either it was different in blood

Or else misgrafted in respect of years,

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,

Or if there were a sympathy in choice

Bar death or sickness did boy(?) seize it all.

Midsmmer Nights Dream.

 

4th January 1812

Mr and Mrs Lawton, the Wedgewoods and Mrs Griffin came to hear Grigletta.

 

5th January 1812

Miss Grigletti went. Mrs Wedgwood took me with her to Parkfield. Here I spent a fortnight and then a fortnight at Maer.

 

29th January 1812

My Aunt HE and MC came to Maer

 

30th January 1812

Returned with my M. 

 

1st February 1812, Saturday

I dined with ME and Papa and Mama at Lawton, met Mr Apers and Mr Hobkirk.

 

25th February 1812

Eliza and I went to Maer to meet Mr and Mrs Sydney Smith.

 

29th February 1812

A long and agreeable walk with Mr Smith over the hills. He is most particularly agreeable in a quiet walk. Eliza (?) on Jeffrey, riding on an ass.

As witty as Noratins Flaecus

As short but not as fit as Bacchus

As great a Jacobin as Grecefus

Riding on a little (black?) ass

In the evening with regret went to the Assembly, danced much with Dr S.Darwin. Just returned from Greece.

Stamford came home with us in the evening to Maer.

 

28th February 1812 (page 149)

The Crewes of Muxton dined at Maer. Went to the Church to ty the (pulpit?)

 

1st March 1812, Sunday

Heard Mr Smith preach. Had a walk after and then left Maer. He has been most agreeable all the time. I have never yet met one who approached him in power, eloquence and comprehension of thought united with the greatest candour, one who sees objects on all their sides from the height of an elevated genius. His reputation is more dependent on his powers of entertaining which are very great, indeed unrivalled but I prefer his serious conversation.

 

4th March 1812

At the Book Sale.

 

12th March 1812

Went with Mama and M to Parkfield to meet Dr Darwin, Miss Morgan there, spent a pleasant day and returned at night.

 

20th March 1812

Mr Butt, Mr Griffin and John Blunt came.

 

21st March 1812

Mr Butt went. Mr William Pembington dined here. A merry game at cards. 

 

22nd March 1812

Mr Griffin went.

 

23rd March 1812

John Blunt went.

 

28th March 1812

Went with Mama and Emma to Basford for a call.

 

29th March 1812

Mr Bent, John, and William dined here. Louisa very ill.

 

30th March 1812

JSC went to  Norwich (Nantwich?) John Bent went.

 

31st March 1812

JSC returned. Eliza Bent called.

 

3rd April 1812, Friday

JSC went.

 

4th April 1812

Eliza M and Louisa to Nantwich.

 

5th April 1812  [page 150]

M and L back again.

 

6th April 1812

Miss Wetherhall spent the day with us.

 

15th April 1812

Mr and Mrs Skerrett and Dorothea came. Papa [starring the?] Shorncliffe. Emma, my Aunt and I walked to Rode. A sweet and lovely morning.

 

16th April 1812

The Skerretts went. Miss Wedgewood breakfasted here. Mrs Lawton [ and Sted?] and took ME and myself to dine with her.

 

20th April 1812

Elizabeth and Charlotte Wedgewood came. Mr W. Roscoe and Mr Taylor dined here.

 

23rd April 1812

Mama, Eliza went, L M and myself dined at Lawton.

 

26th April 1812

M went to Nantwich [?] to fetch ME.

 

27th April 1812

My Uncle returned with them.

 

30th April 1812

My Uncle went. Mr Tomlinson dined here. 

 

2nd May 1812, Saturday

Elizabeth and Charlotte Wedgwood went. Great riots at Macclesfield, much alarm from the rioters[?] taking walkd and forming associations. [?] [difficult to read]

 

4th May 1812, Monday

Went to Mirtho's[?] to see the Cavalry and artillery going down into Lincolnshire to the riots, much struck with the sight and such feelings it gave rise to.

 

26th May 1812,

Mr and Mrs Lawton called. 

 

27th May 1812

Papa at Newcastle on the address upon Mr Percival assassination, Sir Thomas, Lady Fletchers, MrsRussell[?], Miss Wedgwood, Mr Walthall, Mr Sneyd, of Bradwell dined.

 

28th May 1812

Mama, my Aunt and M to Nantwich,

 

31st May 1812

They returned. Mr Broadhurst and son came to tea and staid all night.

 

2nd June 1812, Tuesday

Papa went to the nomination at Stafford. Sir J Wrothesley by Mr Lyttleton [curchdates?] for Sir J Lyttleton's vacant seat.

 

3rd June 1812, Wednesday [page 151]

Papa returned home. Dr Bent died.

 

5th June 1812, Friday

Sarah Wedgwood came.

 

6th June 1812, Saturday

Election, Mr Lyttleton returned for the county.

 

8th June 1812, Monday

Mr, Mrs Ellen Hannah[?], Frances, Catherine Crompton on their return from London. 

 

9th June 1812, Tuesday

They went.

 

11th June 1812, Thursday

Mama and my Aunt HS and M to Maer. Mr Wood dined, sat at the head of the table with unheard of bashfulness. Conversation with S in the drawing room on L and M.

 

12th June 1812, Friday

S.W. left us.

 

16th June 1812, Tuesday

My Aunt L and M to Matlock.

 

17th June 1812, Wednesday

Mrs Wood, Edna and Mrs Wilson came.

 

18th June 1812, Thursday

Mr Wood and Edward.

 

19th June 1812, Friday

Mary and Eliza Wood.

 

21st June 1812, Sunday

4 men Woods dined.

 

23rd June 1812, Tuesday

Mrs Wood and Mrs Wilson went, J.C., Mama, HE called at Basford.

 

24th June 1812, Wednesday

Edna, Eliza and M Wood went. Papa, Mama, HE and I to PF. John Wedgwood [dined?]

 

25th June 1812, Thursday

Mr John Smith, Jos, Eliza and Charlotte dined at P.F. 

 

26th June 1812, Friday

Called at Mr Butts. Mr Cameron dined at Stoney F.Home.

 

4th July 1812, Saturday

Mama, HS, and I called at Betley Court. Sir J.A.

 

7th July 1812, Tuesday

Sir Thomas Fletcher died very suddenly.

 

9th July 1812, Thursday

Eliza to Maer.

 

10th July 1812, Friday

JSC came home.

 

13th July 1812, Monday

My Aunts came. Walks in the hay.

 

16th July 1812, Thursday

Eliza returned.

 

17th July 1812, Friday

They returned from Matlock.

 

18th July 1812, Saturday

My three Aunts, Papa, Mama, JSC dined at Lawton.

 

21st July 1812

Papa went with Mr Robinson to Runcorn.

 

23rd July 1812

Papa returned.

 

25th July 1812

JSC to Maer. Mama, my Aunts M called at Lawton

 

27th July 1812

Mr and Mrs Lawton called with Dr Belcombe for the first time.

 

30th July 1812

My Aunts Anne and B and Eliza went to the [Rock?] house.

 

31st July 1812

My Aunt and M followed them. 

 

Page 152

 

Elle me condusait a penser que les touts des autres lorsqu'il n'infleunt point sur notre conduite deviennent un titre a l'estime mais ne sont jamais une excuse lorsqu'ils nous imitent au point de nous render reprehensibles. Pleusey mon enfant me dit elle pleasey mais no me parley point on voulent exiter la compassion des autres on s'attendait soi meme on passé on revue tous us mant s'il est quelque circonstance qui nous soit chappee on la retonnect elle nous bless longtemps [french transcription continues 10 more lines]

Adele de Linagas

 

4th August 1812, Tuesday

The first race day. Ed Manwaring there. Danced with E.M., Mr G Fitzherbert, spent the evening chiefly with Mrs F. Staid all night at Stoney Field.

 

5th August 1812, Wednesday

At the course, ['rather' crossed out] agreeable. F Heathcote S.W, Mr John Crewe and EP all merry. Play dull. In the morning walked about with Miss Powys. Staid at Stoney Field.

 

6th August 1812, Thursday

Came home in the morning.

 

11th August 1812

Mr and Mrs John Wedgwood drove over and dined with us.

 

13th August 1812

Sparrows, Mrs Wilkinson, Mr and Mrs W Bent, Mr Griffin, Mr Penlington dined with us.

 

14th August 1812

Mr Griffin went.

 

Page 153

 

Written in an evening of Spring sitting by Mary in the twilight and listening to the thrush singing near me.

 

Oh sing again, sweet bird of heaven

And pour thy varied mellowed strain

While twilight dims the shower of even 

Like a veil falling on the plain

 

Oh sing again the note of bliss

The tender call the thrill of joy

And soothe in such an hour as this

The impatient thought, the wearied sigh.

 

They song upon the ear of night

Come warbling clear and seeks the power

Who fills thy springtime with delight

And thanks him for the falling shower.

 

For budding stem, for leafy cell

For dewdropped and green wheat

They telling notes incessant swell

The offering of thy incense sweet

 

God who first called thee into

To feed, tossing and to enjoy.

 

 

He called me too to taste of heaven

To dwell beneath this azure sky

With that the feeling sent was given

To thrill with love and exctasy

He breathed the trembling spirit here

Alive to all of natures charms

Which greets her with the adoring tear

And live enchanted in her arms.

 

Page 154

 

Does evening draw her misty veil

And hang on every flower and tree

While crowding songsters swell the gale

To thee the sense is extasy.

 

[cross out - 'or does the awful thunder round, shaking thy inmost, while burning clouds aroar']

 

Or when dark hand clouds hang round

Which glittering tears of lightning part

The ['glittering flash' crossed out]  thunder and the deep resound

With shuddering pleasure awes they heart.

 

Or dost thou taste the breeze of man

When the sun flames upon the east

And sparkling dewdrops deck the [han?]

Is it not rapture to they heart.

 

Or in the growen heat of noon

When bee hums upon the wing

And flowers spread gaily to the sun

Does pleasure through thy pulses ring?

 

Or when the moon is riding high 

While severing clouds around her roll

O'er heavens wide starry canopy

What whispers to they swelling soul

 

Has God thus highly strung they heart

Mysterious rapture bid thee know

And wouldst thou from this seat depart [descent?]

And to the world for pleasure go.

 

The ardent glow, the generous fire

That Her'on has lighted through thy frame

Say shall it sink to the desire

Of narrow passion of worldly fame

 

By worthless hopes debasing cares

Say shall that heart incessant torn

By dryness chill'd oppressby glare

To mediocrity be worn.

 

Then wretched in its last estate

And  heartless in the path that's trod

Grow discontented with they state

And cast a murmuring thought to God.

 

Es from Tallean de la Litterature Inveuse dans la 18me heile. On of the most sensible books I ever read. Of the state of France after Louis IIV, to me says Cependent la vie oisive de la cour la conversation des femmes avaitat detruit ce caractere de gravite que les Francais avail at en jades [french transcription continues.

 

Notes in book

DJ 2nd Volume, Chapter 20

Surely there is an essential difference between the faculty of the mind which perceives the truth of a demonstrated Pross [Prop?] and that which decides upon the truth or falseness of a doubtful one. That which receives that 2 any of a ti are more than one and that which decides upon the truth of Rev.n or any hyp in Poht [Polit?] Oeco or some such matter. Else there can be no truth in that remark that mathmatics do not exercise the judgement. Yet there appears to be great foundation for it. Lockes Ohvision seems to me founded on a real and essential distinction in the faculties of the mind. I should think it almost as graet as the difference between receiving a scene from the eye or from description.

 

Map 

Anadolia

Karamania

Cypress

Syria.

M.Marsh 

 

Map

Belgium

Holland

Luxembourg

 

Map

England

Marsh

 

Map

Cyprus

Damascus

Arabia

 

Map

Italy

 

Maps inserted in diary probably neatly hand drawn and coloured by Martin Marsh.

 

Two pages of notes in pencil. Philosophical.

 

On the giving of Mms St Mathew fromV1 toN6 Chapter V1

Romans 0 8 Chapter V11

11 Corinthians from v 5 to v 14 IX

 

 The Archbishop of Chassey

By a French Naturalist

 

The spring of 1841 had passed in the study of the animals of inhabiting the environs of Paris. The pools of Plessir Piquet and Mendon, the meres of Vincennes of la Glaciere,the basins of Versailles and even the dilites by the high ways had been explored. My little table was covered with bowls full of the waters I had procured in these environs. The aquatic plants which I had carefully preserved begilded[?] lasarintly[?] while amid the delicate plaments of the roots a thousand little beings were enjoying themselves whose existence and delicate organization is revealed to us by the microscope alone.

There was the rotifice whose body composed of concentric rings slipping one is within another like the tabes of a telescope carries in front two wheels a singular [continues next page10 lines.]

 

Pencil drawing of a flower.

Narcissus Jpconisarabilis

 

 

Page 156 - 157 - 158

French transcription continues

Qui ne vout pas que ces remarques s'appliquent aux Anglais du - [French transcription continues all page

 

Page 159

 

From Burke on the Irish Catholics Letter toW [South, Smith?]

I shall never call any religious opinions which appear important to serious and pious minds things of no consideration. Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is at least half infidelity.

Partial freedom is privilege and prerogative and not liberty. Liberty such as deserves name is an honest equitable, diffusive and impartial principle.

 

Fermosi in atto che aonia fatto incerto

Chinneque avesse visto sua figuira

Sella era donna snetiona et vera

O Sasso colsito in tat maniera

Stupedio et fi [continues 5 more lines]

 

Page 160

 

It is with nations as with individuals they feel before they think. The progress of Society is from fancy to reason, from sensibility to truth. The passions which were formerly felt and delineated have since been surveyed and analysed. Men do not perhaps think more intensely in the present age but they watch their thoughts more closely, they are more aware of the false [transcription continues whole page]

D Stewart

 

Lock of blond hair. Folded in white paper.

 

Page 161

 

Pencil drawing of candlestick

 

In these vernal seasons of the year when the air is soft and pleasant it were an injury and sulleness against nature not to go out and see her riches and partake of her rejoicings with heaven and earth - Milton

 

Page 162 163 164

 

On reading the Lord Byrons Childe Harolde - 1812 

 

Oh what a weary heavy load were life

Without a God to hear the wretcheds prayer

A hopeless destiny, an endless strife

Gains't all the woes this feeble frame must share

In a bad world where none the suffering spare

Alive to every pain alone we tread

And unsupported all the burden bear

By no kind hand supported rais's or staid

Bare to the torturing wind, the undefended head.

 

[continues one more verse]

 

Page 165 - 166 - 167

 

For me but of dust and shall they melt away

Soon as the mortal covering shall decay?

 

Whenever there is a very large assemblage of persons who have no other occupation but to amuse themselves there will infallibly be generated acuteness of intellect, reprisement of manners, a good taste in conversation; and with the same certainly all performed thought and all serious affection will be discarded from their society. The multitude of persons and things that force themselves on the attention in such a scene and the rapidity with which they succeed each other and pass away prevent anyone from making a deep or permanent impression and the mind having never been taxed to any course of application and long habituated to this lively succession and variety of objects come at last to require the excitement of perpetual change and to find a multiplicity of friends as indispensible as a multiplicity of amusements. Thus [continues ] Edin. Rev by Jeffrey

 

He who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled

The first dark day of nothingness

The last of danger and distress

Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines whose beauty lingers

And meshed[?] the mild angelic air

The rapture of repose that's there

The fixed yet tender traits that streak

The languor of the placid cheek

And but for that sad shrouded eye

That fires not, wins not, weeps not now

And but for what chill changeless brow

Whose touch thrills with mortality

And candles to the goyer's heart

As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon

Yes, but for these and these alone

Some moments, aya one treacherous hour

He still might doubt the tyrants power

So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd

The first, last look, by death revealed.

Giaour

 

Page 168 - 169 - 170 - 171 - 171 - 173

Il me semble que le Bonheur consisted dans la possession d'une destine in rapport avec nos faiubles. Nos desires son tune chose morer tune et souvent [ French transcription continues]

 

Page 173

Thoughts for employing Sunday

Selecting a portion of Scripture, a character type or miracle as a subject of investigation, collecting parables, texts upon any chosen topics as "the sin of selfishness' 'the advantages of humility'&c.

I believe that it is best to throw life into a method that every hour may bring its employment and every employment have its hour. If everything be kept in a certain place when anything is worn out the vacuity it leaves will shew what is wanting so if every part of time has its appropriate duty the hour will call into remembrance its engagement.

 

Page 174

 

20th August 1812, 

My Aunt HE and M returned home. 

 

22nd August 1812

JSC to Eturia, my Uncle came. Dined at Mrs Natrells[?].

The Wedgwoods John, S.W., Mrs W Bent, Miss Morton Mrs Parker, Cooke.

 

23rd August 1812

Mr W Bent, Mr Rawson, Eliza Bent spent tea here. 

 

25th August 1812

My Uncle went.

 

26th August 1812

Mr Holland came.

Some time about this the John Wedgwoods came to spend some time with us.

 

1st September 1812, Tuesday

The Lawtons and Dr Belcombe dined here.

 

3rd September 1812, Thursday

Mr Haygarth came. {Naygarth?]

 

4th September 1812, Friday

A long walk. Mr Tomkinson came.

 

5th September 1812, Saturday

A walk to Kid Row.

 

6th September 1812, Sunday

Mr N. Tomkinson went. Music in the evening.

 

7th September 1812, Monday

Mr [Haygarth, Naygarth?], JSC to Dorfold.

 

8th September 1812, Tuesday

The Wedgwoods dined at Dr Northens. 

 

9th September 1812, Wednesday

The Wedgwoods and party from hence dined at Lawton.

 

13th September 1812

John Wedgwood came.

 

14th September 1812

The Wedgwoods went leaving [Jane?] Mr Blunt and John came.

 

15th September 1812

The Blunts went and Mr and Mrs Clarkson, Miss Marwarings came.

 

16th September 1812

William Bent, Mr Rich?, Bent and Mr Walthall dined here. 

 

18th September 1812

The Clarksons and Manwaring [Mannings?] went. We went to Newcastle and took John with us.

 

21st September 1812

My Aunt HE, M. to Betley Hall. James France came.

 

22nd September 1812

ME. L. and I called upon Miss Belcombe at Lawton Hall. 

 

23rd September 1812

Mr Griffin called. James France went. JSC with him. Mama, ME, and L drank tea at Mrs Morrisses. 

 

24th September 1812

Eliza Bent came.

 

25th September 1812

My Aunt Louisa and I went to Bostock. Mr Croppers, Mr Brooks there. JSC at Bostock.

 

26th September 1812

Mr Croppers went. JSC went. Mrs Tapping called.

 

27th September 1812

To Church, heard Mr Brooks preach.

 

30th September 1812

Went a coursing and home. Found Mr [Noryator?] and Mary.

 

2nd October 1812, Friday

HE, M. and I spent a merry day at Basford.

 

3rd October 1812, Saturday

Came home.

 

5th October 1812, Monday

My Aunt, Mama, HEC to Chorley.

 

6th October 1812, Tuesday

John Blunt came. Papa at Newcastle.

 

7th October 1812, Wednesday

Newcastle Election, first Poll day. Sir J B---y P Gower, Mr Boothe.

 

9th October 1812, Friday

John Blunt went.

 

12th October 1812, Monday

Mrs Tollet, Miss [Hemming?] Mrs. Mr and Miss Wall called. Miss and Mr Wall remained with us. Dr Belcombe dined. Discussion on Blue ladies. We danced in the evening.

 

13th October 1812, Tuesday

The Lawtons, Miss Belcombe and Dr Belcombe dined with us. Danced in the evening. Elizabeth and Sally Wedgwood came.

 

14th October 1812, Wednesday

We all went to Mr Gilberts, met Mrs Tollets who took the Walls home.

 

15th October 1812, Thursday [page 176]

Called at Lawton. Dr Belcombe there.

 

16th October 1812, Friday

The Wedgwoods went.

 

17th October 1812, Saturday

John Bent came.

 

18th October 1812, Sunday

He went.

 

20th October 1812, Tuesday

Assembly. A gay and delightful evening, danced with EP. We had blue Robeson. 

 

21st October 1812, Wednesday

Miss Powys came.

 

24th October 1812, Saturday

Miss Powys went. Mand MEC to Nantwich. 

 

3rd November 1812, Tuesday

Mr Haygarth came. Mr Wedgwood.

 

4th November 1812, Wednesday

Mr Wedgwood laid out our garden. Mrs Fitz called.

 

5th November 1812, Thursday

Mr W took Mr H to see Etruria. We drew from his Grecian views. Long walk before breakfast. Mr, Mrs and Jos Wedgwood came, Mr Houghtno for one day. Music in the evening.

 

6th November 1812, Friday

Walked to Rosport Bank to take a stretch of L.W. My Uncle came.

 

7th November 1812, Saturday

The Wedgwoods went. Mama, ME, Mr H and I to Swinnerton. Met the Wedgwoods, Miss Grigletti, Mr Edls Lockley, George Fitzherbert. Gage [George?] and inn Mrs Eld.

 

8th November 1812, Sunday

Went on to Maer. Miss Griglotti sang in the evening.

 

9th November 1812, Monday

Came home, met R Gwin, Newcastle.

 

10th November 1812, Tuesday

Walked all round by Rode and Talk.

 

11th November 1812, Wednesday

Went to see Old Moreton. Mr Houghton. 

 

12th November 1812, Thursday

Bad day, could not go out at all.

 

13th November 1812, Friday

Mr Haygarth left us. Mama, Papa, Eliza called at Trentham. Left MC at P.F.

 

14th November 1812, Saturday

Mama, ME and I went to call on Mrs J Lawton. She out, went on to the Sale at Clough Hall [ Hills?]. Mrs Tomkinson and Hinchcliffe reflections on Egotism.

 

17th November 1812, Sunday

Mama and M to Eton.

 

21st November 1812, 

ME from P Field. Miss Grigletti C.W. and Marianne Darwin came.

 

22nd November 1812

Mr Gaskell called.

 

28th November 1812

Mrs Lawton called. Charlotte and Marianne went.

 

30th November 1812

Mr, Mrs, Sarah and Emma Lawrence came.

 

1st December 1812, Thursday

The Lawrences went. Mr Butt came. Papa returned.

 

5th December 1812

Mr Butt went. My Aunt to Nantwich.

 

7th December 1812

Miss Grigletti came.

 

12th December 1812, Saturday

Papa to Nantwich, we all dined at Lawton and took Mary Houghton, Dr Balcombe. Danced in the evening.

 

13th December 1812, Sunday

Papa returned.

 

18th December 1812

Assembly. F Allen for [lgt?] first time.

 

20th December 1812, Sunday

Mama and M from Eton.

 

21st December 1812, Monday

Dr Balcombe called.

 

22nd December 1812, Tuesday

L.C. and I fetched Miss Grigletti from Newcastle.

 

23rd December 1812, Wednesday 

My Aunt from Nantwich. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter inserted on page 109

Miss Caldwell

Linley (neat italic handwriting)

 

Adelaide (visited?) but not at home. (note under address)

 

Now pleasures; a pleasure purchased with pain hurts. God in the world who sees all. He is strong who conquers himself. His is a friend who helps in unfortunate things. Who are endowed with virtue are (along crossed out) only rich plu (people?). He is not safe who all hate, the man is ungrateful who does not return/recompense a benefit, who does not know to be silent, is not able to talk. His father is foolish, who hates him without cause whom he did begot. He is a citizen who loves daily his country. Who is it if she (who?) may admire the splendour of virtue. Justice is the virtue by who good men are called. Nothing is lasting(?). Love of the the/ones country conquers. What is more base than avarice. (Compassitifs when explained by gran take May? Mary?). He is always to be watched. Death is certain, time uncertain. We know God by the works of his. All spring from whence they are born. The world is juena (?) with the - of God. All are full of fools. One death expelty awaits all.

 

Oh lordy lord where are thou, is what scene of all extending nature is they place, art thou with God and happiness indeed , or art thou slumbering in the quiet grass, all ignorant of tears awaits for the shout of resurrection to evoke thee and dry these drops forever.

 

File B 059

 

 

 

The Holy Spirit

Thou glorious sun, thou Lord of life and light. 

Whose golden beams tho' wide creation steaming, 

fill the blue cope of Heaven with radiance bright, 

On mountain, rock, plain, sea in splendour gleaming. 

Vast as thou art' faint emblem of that power,

what guides thy mighty course and oversiles(?) thine hour. 

Faint emblem,of that influence divine,

Which brooding o'er the dark and heaving deep 

Oh soulless mother, summon'd her from sleep, 

to form and purpose, excellent! Sublime! 

Less glorious faint emblem, of that all/dear/clear pervading ray, 

which thru' the darker mysteries of the mind, 

deep shades of guilt, of woe, of ever blind, 

pours on the twilight soul celestial day. 

Oh Spirit! Comforter! My spirits call 

visit, the mists of sin, the clouds of thought dispel. 

 

(Pencil version)

Faint emblem of that spirit all divine,

Which brooding over the dark and heaving deeps,

Of Soulless mother called her from her sleep

Called Chars from her soulless sleep

It  form and purpose excellent to thine,

Less glorious than that all pervading ray,

Which through the darker mysteries of the mind,

Though guilt, woe doubt and loneliness ever blind,

Pourson the twilight soul celestial day,

Oh spirit visit thou my spirits all

Burn here the mists of sea, the clouds of night dispel

 

Vast as thou art faint emblem of that power,

Who guides thy mighty overules these hour 

 

Thou glorious sun! Thou Lord of life and light,

Whose golden beams through wide creation spring,

Filling the cope of heaven with radiance bright,

On mountain (earth crossed out) mountain on earth and sea in splendour gleaming,

 

The Rev Mr (Martin, Justice?) Aldera (?)

Park Crescent,

JSC  Rofaiguil(?)

Post Mark - SP12 1831 Night 7

Red wax seal.

 

The Magdealene

Low kneeling over the saviours couch she bends

Where pale with toil, the pure, the all perfect lay,

While from her doselike eyes in floods descends

Her sorrows vain, sweeping her soul away,

And as the heavy drops incessant pour,

Upon those sacred feet so bruised and bare,

With the (dark crossed out) solt clasty rights of her hair,

Which that cloudy veil her beauty's broken (flair?)

Wipes them,while reverend misses, bitter sighs,

And penitential (grooms?) in sad confusion rise

She weeps her sins her souls unworthiness

The cares the grips of him, who dies to make them less,

The crowd around (whispers crossed out) in harmony whispers stand,

Indignant wonder in each bosom burn'd,

Contemptuous eyes the drooping mourner scarred,

With angry brows in dark enquiry turned

Knows he the master? She the sinner vile?

Daring entirely this his presence to defile.

(continues file B040)

 

Pencil picture of plant.

 

Mortalian of Mortals - french and english

 

 

 

Les peoples d'Evora, si duit au dessespoir par quel'ques ouvelles empois petions s'etoit souleve et dans la chalua, de la sedition il etoit c'etrappe aus echauffes plus parniel des plaintes contre la tyrranie des Espanols, des voeux publics pour la maison de Braganza on reconnait alars mais un peu toud, combine Phillip 2nd avoit manqué contrers regilottes interest en laissant dans un Royaume nouvillevirent conques une maison aupe riche et don't les droits a la couronne cloiei si evidents. Ce consi desation de termi aau conseil d'Espagne peur d'assure le duc de Braganza ou a moins de le renuire de Portugal. Ou lire offset pasuccamus fair valoi ses qualities nationelles. En effet elles n' etoient pas assu brillantes pour faire caucn du aus Espagnols qu' il voulent un jour entesprenadroit ate si faire Roi, mais elles etoient assez solides pour donne aus Portuguese l'esperance un government dous sage et plein de moderation sils voulerent cusmemis enterprendre de le l'aise leur souverain. La conducite ne pouvoit casuez au cun sousscion mais une Maire qui avoirait gardasco quelque tems au poignant dans les uefli il n'amit gueure pait, avoit un peu suspect a lepreoneir nemestre.

 

 

 

 

[Other notes in the diary are as follows:]

 

Page 271

 

Miss M.

 

To be down at nine any time before breakfast, 

to read Gillon. To read newspaper after and Gillon ['ten' crossed out] ½ past ten. 

Then to practice one hour and no more. 

20 minutes fingers, the rest hard practicing.

½  past 11

Then write letters and if no letters to write, either essay or common place book, but to employ that hour in writing. ½ -12 

 

Play an hour ½ - 1  

 

Then luncheon till 2  

 

French exercise ½ 2 h or Italian.

 

Then exercise 1 h, ½ past 3

 

['Then reading' crossed out] ['half past light book' crossed out.]

Then drawing or writing ½ past 4

 

Reading light book. ½ past 5

 

Practicing 1h

Writing 1h

Playing 1h

French Exercise ½ h

Exercise 1 h

Drawing 1h

Reading 1h

 

When engagements prevent these to proceed in the regular order, leaving out exercise at the hour when it is [prevented, assured?] any other day and however some parts left unfinished to being at the beginning each morning.

 

Gillon

 

Common Place Book. Essays, writing out fair Music Grammar

 

 

 

 

 

 

In learning the mechanical part of music the first thing is to get a good position of the hand and the habit of playing from the fingers, to gain this the best way is to practice the drumming for a short time every morning. And then in other practicing never to suffer the hand to strike improperly every time the hand strikes wrong is in favour of the bad habit it should be remembered therefore however hard the reading or execution the hand must be just as much attended to, there ought to be a certain easy negligent feel in the armsand power in the pressure of the fingers which should as it were, squeeze the note like a soft bubble pressing upon it.

 

So read well the habit to be aquired is that of the mind instantly recognizing the note on seeing it and the finger mechanically following it. This at first is but a slow process but in time will become a complete habit and may be performed in an infinite small position of time to use it the eye must really read and the mind acknowledge

 

 

The basis of music, what is called the sonorous body.

Suppose C in the bass makes one vibration in a given time, cut the string in two and half will give its octave that being shorter by half will give 2 vibratos in the same time. And the sound being produced by the distension of the atoms in the centre the tighter a string the shriller sound there it will be most [leth?] in the rest octile. Ie 4 vib exactly between 2 and 4 you will have 3 on G. be octave of 3 - will be 6 between 6 and 4 you will find 5 on E double of 4. 8 between 6 and 8. 7 on B 6 octave of 5-10 between 8 find 9. 9 out of 9 you have the whole scale of C on one string or sonorous body. In several notes of this the tones are not exactly divided equally on a Pianoforte.

C C C G G E B C D E G F B  a as they are in the real sonorous body.

3-6 5 7 8 9 10 12 11 14 13 for some reason I cannot [adjust?] the clap

C C G C E G B C D E F G A B they represent two different sounds for the C.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 # and D6 for instance should not be the same note.

 

[light pencil handwriting] [stick?] C in the bass and by [alterly, afferticly?] C string you will perceive its vibrations include the sound of its octave fifth and third, it [litirine?] includes all the other sounds of the scale and their emotions not easily perceptible to the ear but what may be found by dividing the same string into given lengths thus dividing it in half you have its octave, half again its 5th &c.

 

The Natural Scale Includes 

A major 3rd contains 4 tones a mirror 3rd 3 in all major sinles the first 3rd Mathe 2nd Mi in Mi the 3rd reversed. A proper 5th includes 7 tones but in every scale one fifth called the expressive 5th which has but 6 in Major scales this 5th from the 7th in Minor from the 2nd.

The Common chord if a note its tomic 5th and 3rd.

The common chord may terminate any period leaving nothing for the ear to desire but add another note and it will not.to the [circle?] belong 3 chords, its first take the 5th above the tonic and the middle note its 3rd you have the proper common chord C E G - for the second take the 5th from the 5th and you will have the 9th or 2 and the 3 note from the 5th to C . G B D for the 3rd take the 5th below and it major 3rd and you have 4 6 8 or F A C. Thus you have the chords of the scale.

 

In playing chords belonging to a particular key that ofC will be taken as an example you will 1st find 3 chords belonging properly to that tonic or generator. 1 taken from the 1st another from the 3rd, another from the 5th to which you may play as bass indifferently the tonic 3rd and 5th but in ascending through the bass notes by degrees you will want chords to the 4 other sounds of the key. You will find them in the common chords and inversions of the 5th above and 4th below the tonic as shewn before thus to D you may play the common chords of G major and its inversions to F4 the common chord of Fb major its inversions to G to A 3rd of F common chord of F to B - 3d of G common chord of G as these common chords of F, G are found all on naturals or on sounds in the key of C they may belong to C G - transcription continues

 

 

 

 

Books Read in 1811 [page B310]

 

Blairs Lectures

I have read no book that has given more correctness to my ideas than this. And few of which I think the style more excellent and the thoughts more just. But eloquence and poetry can be so little learned that rules seem only to have the effect of shackling ['genius' crossed out] the imagination. Those which are founded in real taste. Taste will teach a real genius, and without that all the rules in the world will be of no avail. This teaching I think perhaps may make more men write tolerably but may hinder a few from writing sublimely. A second thought, a glance at the reader of the hearer checks the flow of the imagination and cools the swell of the heart. Such rules should only be thought of during correction. To compose well with them in the mind is impossible. There is coldness in his criticisms that chills enthusiasm and checks hope for who shall expect to please when Milton and Shakespeare, Homer and Virgil, Domosthenes and Cicero are frigidly dissected and censured for imperfection.

 

Clarkes Travels in Russia [Linley Wood Library]

1.Vol quarto

This book appear to be written with a decided prejudice to the disadvantage of the Russians on the mind of the author. A traveler has so much in his power and by slight misrepresentations may so entirely alter the impression his descriptions leave upon the mind that all Clarke's information respecting the Russian character is rendered supicious and therefore valueless to me. I think him tedious. Minute where he might have been general and general where he should have been minute. He draws no picture to the mind and therefore leaves an indistinct impression. Upon the whole I think him no more interesting than travelers usually are and that is to say little in his praise.

 

The Curse of Kehama

Southey 1. Vol Quarto

I opened the book in hopes of finding some traces of that fancy taste and feeling and harmony that delighted me in Thalaba. I was excessively disappointed, there are few, very few passages after the first two or three books that Southey ought to have written.

 

The History of Herodotus

2 Vol. 800

This book has interested me exceedingly. Unworthy styled the father of his Herodotus seems to me most anxious in the search for truth. Carefully discriminating that which he can vouch for from that merely reported to him. He bears many internal marks of truth. His account of the Scythians agrees in many points and particularly in his description of their country with Clarke's in 1811. This account of the interior of Africa of the limits, the animals and especially the vast quantities of salt and the scattered spots where Date has grown is confirmed by Jackson. Also that most curious affirmation of his that some Lybians travelling far into the interior discovered a large river flowing to the Eastward  which he supposes to be the Nile! With a large city on a lake near it. Can this be [Tombat, Timbuktoo?] As a register of ancient opinions, as a describer of the manners, customs and costume of the different nations then inhabiting the world. Herodotus appears to me to be valuable beyond calculation and interesting beyond all others. Well did he deserve the praises of assembled Greece. And is there a higher standard of taste.

 

 

Travels of Mingor Abu Inleb Khan [page B314]   file E 045

2. Vol 800

These are not so curious as one should at first imagine. The travels of an Asiatic in Europe seem to promise much interesting matter, but such an expectation is perhaps unreasonable for what should an Asiatic know more than ourselves of our appearance and what should he know more than ourselves of the moral and political effect of our manners and opinions. Were a philosopher from a nation more refined and polished to visit us his remarks might be of great value, but of what importance is it to us to know that we drink wine, that we are free to walk unveiled, that we ride in four wheeled carriages &c. The writer appears an observing man and a most faithful describer but certainly neither a philosopher nor a politician, witness his scheme for paying off the national debt.

 

Southey's History of Brazil

1 Vol quarto [page B315]

The subject naturally interesting of savage life and the hardships of first settlers is rendered doubly so by Southey's manner of treating it. But his book like other amusing histories must be used with caution. Truth is seldom very entertaining, and Southey had admitted into his tale many most wonderful and incredible stories. Robertson, in his history of America always appeared to me to reject too generally but Southey seems in the extreme of credulity. His style is entirely spoiled by an affectation of old words and phrases. Simplicity is charming but the affectation of simplicity is the worst of affectation as the artless appearance of artlessness is the worst of deceits.

 

 

Southey, Chronicles of Cid

1 Vol quarto

This book is entirely without value with respect to entertainment, it is barren. In style a bad imitation of Jolnes Froissant. And its value as a book of authority is entirely done away by the circumstance of its being manufactured by Southey himself out of what he found in different Spanish histories of the Campeador.

 

Lettres et Pensies du Marechal Prince de Ligne

2 vol duodecimo

Les letters sont interessantes, on ne peut pas s'impecher d'aimer qui les a ecrites. Quoique il estun peu trop courtesan. Ses pensies sont bien plus estimables. Les reflexions d'un homme d'esprit et de boute qui connat bien la monde, qui voit tout et qui reflechit profondement sur ce qu'il voit. Je n'ai rien lu ni dans la Rochefontault ni dans la Bengere qui passé ces pensies. Le livre estcohte par Madame de Stael.

 

La Vie de Marianne

Par Marvaus 2 vol duodecimo

Que cette livre estinterressant! Que marveux devoit bien connaitre le Coeur humain et qu'il avoit le talent de bien peindre les caractors. Lire un tel livre c'est apprendre a bien vivre mais qu'il y en ait peu.

 

Lettres of Mlle de L'Espinass. 2 vol 12/

Eloquent, passionate, passion in all its magnificence in all its disinterestedness. Yet passion to those who read its effusions coldly, even true passion too often appears une froide eggageration [exaggeration?].

 

Simple Story. Mrs Inchbold 418.

Perhaps in the teaching style, in the style where there is more meaning than words, the best novel in English or in any language.

 

Old Honor House. C. Smith. 4 vol 12

For a the listless idleness of a sick room this would be an amusing book. 

 

Home, Miss Cullen. 5 vol.

Strange notions long since exploded. All that is goodis a curious ingenuity in describing different kinds of ill temper.

 

Memoires de P Eugene &c 1 vol 12

Naïve gai franche. But I have heard and I fear with reason that these delightful memoirs are not genuine.

 

La Guerusalemme Liberata. Tasso. 1 vol folio.

I began this sublime poem three years ago when very ignorant of the Italian language. As I proceeded I was in extacy. For variety of beauty, for harmony, softness, luxuriance of Faney and brilliance of description. Tasso stands unrivalled. Le dinquant du Tasse. Absurd critic! Unworthy to read a poem in which he could over look exquisite beauty to remark a few conceits.

 

Tenophones Socrates translated by S. Fielding 1 vol 12- [Linley Wood?]

The wise sayings of the wisest of men who were not assisted by inspiration or revelation. How gratifying it is to find truth, the reward of patient reflection. And that Socrates unassisted but by philosophy approached so near the knowledge of true religion.

 

Milton's Lesser Poems. Comus Samson Agonistes

Comus is perfect beauty there never was such a descriptive poet as Milton. Callegro and il pensexoso have long been a consolation to my imagination when dwelling on sorrow by the diversion of their vivid beautiful long [indeed?] description, the lesser poems do not possess much beauty in general; that on the new born infant and Christmas day excepted.

 

Crabbes Poems. 2 vol 12.

In spite of all his deformities and all his disgusts I like Crabbe, he is the poet of nature, he speaks her language, he paints her scenery, he is the poet of England. He has left the fairy land of fancy, he paints our country, our villages, our woodlands, our shores, the pleasures and the paints, the virtues and the vices of our poor with the strong hand of truth. Let us read in the beauty of sweet Autumn. But let us feel and deeply fell with the wretchedness of the real village.

 

Books Read 1812

Receuil de Lettres. 3 vol 12/

Les letters de l'aimable dares de la spirituelle Coulange and de Me de Villors. Elles m'amusant mais voila tout et je puis bien imaginer que toute femme bien m'amusant aussi bien cent.

 

Self Control. 2 vol 12/

The character of Laura is well designed but not well executed for though praised continually by the author her actions are often such as must call blame from the reader. I do not merely allude to her encouragement of Colonel Hosgrave but to a strained gaiety of conversation at unseasonable times &c. The second volume is so much beneath the first that the same hand seems scarcely to have written them. I do not call this a clever book for I fancy I see glimpses of imitation of most of the best writers in this line. I do not mean direct imitation but what plainly shews that had there been more before her she had not been.

 

Psyche. Mrs Tyghe 1 vol. 8

A very pretty and perfect specimen of female poetry, delicate, musical and very gaily coloured. I do not mean by this that the subject is lively but the descriptions are very pink and green. The allegory is an old one but the personifications are often very ingeniously done, the island of indifference and its inhabitants particularly is very well devised. Upon the whole this poem gives an elevated idea of the abilities of the author without giving any particular pleasure to the reader, indeed to the reader of sentiment, to use a phrase much abused because much abused, it is out of the reach of allegory to do this. There cannot in the nature of things be any great interest excited for even if we forget the allegory we are still presented only with a meager harthorn[?] view of personage and their attributes and the hero of the tale stands with us, or else is only the self same figure which alone is always present in each picture exhibited. I would rather read Crabbe's seaman's death than volumes of Spencer yet as poets there can be no comparison. It is not that in allegory we lose our interest because we are always thinking the persons are not persons but personification. For we do in fact often forget this, as we forget that characters in novels are imaginary characters. But because they are described in one dress in one book they are not varying human nature. They are not ourselves and we cannot sympathise with one of their feelings, except perhaps in the Castle of Indolence, the sensations of the Mousey [morsy?] porter. But a man might be in a similar situation. No man could ever be eternally riding on a pig like Gluttony in the Fairy Queen, therefore we know at once he is not one of us. The perfection of allegory lies in the aptness with which the attributes and dress of the characters figure, the effects of the passion represented. And this in a short poem as in the Castle of Indolence affords a great deal of satisfaction but it is impossible to get through a string of them, nor can the admiration which is so justly the due of a good Allegorical writer ever entire through the unpleasurable labour.

 

Eighteen Hundred & Eleven

Mrs Barbauld. 54 pages 2.

A short poem in heroic verse. It is, I own, very difficult to give interest or to preserve originality in a work of this kind and accordingly Mrs Barbauld has completely failed. I see nothing in any one line that strikes me as new or sublime. And the melancholy view of affairs is not described with the sigh of poetry but with the growl of whiggism.

 

Amans History of Alexanders Expedition 

2 vols 8 

Every book that treats Alexander the idol of my imagination though not of my principles I read with pleasure but this particularly, for it is written with an evident impartiality and desire of truth which makes it much to be depended upon. And it makes no mention of several facts which in time would have greatly stained Alexander's fame. It is also very minute in some instances and gives once an extract from the private diary of the King himself. The whole book is indeed chiefly composed from the journals of Ptolemy Lagus and Aristobulus who never were separated from him. Whether I consider Alexander with respect to his early years and the short duration of them the extent of his conquest, his consummate policy, his searching mind, his taste for learning, his precision in small things, his invincibility in great ones, his patience, his prudence, his continuance on the tenderness of his disposition, his affectionate temper, or his generous heart, I am lost in admiration and can only exclaim as Agesilaus did of Essaminondos "wonderful man." And this is the creature that ranting philosophers have chosen to style a mad man and a tyrant. I do not say according to our enlightened notions of things that his ambition was justifiable, but as the world then thought, the passion for fame was the sublime of human nature. And the ambition of uniting a barbarous world under one mighty and civilized empire was the best of ambitions. This seems the main object of his life. To this all his views and actions were directed. And when we consider what in thirteen years he effected shall we dare to assert his measures were ill chosen. While he lived the mighty monarchy subsisted when the key stone fell, the edifice sunk to the ground. Were I to choose out the qualities that most mentioning of course his amazing genius, powerful conceptions, his extended views and well directed inexhaustible means. I should mention his attention to detail evident in the regularity of his diaries &c, united with his power of generalizations, his [unacarried?] exertion and industry, his affection to his many bosom friends, his tenderness to the fallen, his repentance of his faults, his candour and his magnanimity. The best action of his life was suffering himself to be persuaded to lead back his victorious army from India in spite of his ardent insatiable desire to pursue his conquests. The most magnanimous action his noble confidence in the integrity of Phillip the Physician. The wisest, the most wonderful it is impossible to choose perhaps the taking of Tyre is the best example of the last. And refusing to drink water before his fainting army of the first. Though this action is to generous I am ashamed to

give it another name. To these the character of the man, the tears shed at the death of Clitus, indeed the whole affair and his emotions on the recovery of Marchus whom he thought lost are sufficient. Now let any honest man lay his hand upon his heart, let him suppose himself at 18 or 20, a king and with an invincible genius and ardent passion for fame, with out religion and without example let this same man at thirty be master of half the world. And let him say whether his career would have been mightier, wiser or better.

 

Trotters Memoirs of Fox. 1 vol.8 vo.

With every opportunity for observing the character and listening to the opinions of Mr Fox, Trotter has chosen to write a book and a large book without one remark and scarcely with a trait of the character of the man he pretends to describe. Mr Trotter is a coxcomb and has just missed being a fool. But he has imbibed perhaps a little of the eloquence and sentiment that flowed around him. His descriptions of the places through which they passed in their tour are very graphic but one cannot help admiring the infinite stupidity of the man who travelling through Flanders with Fox can tell one the corn looked well and the turnips were clean. It is only here and there and by most small degrees that one can pick up a tolerable idea of the hero through glimpses in the wood of common place remark and sentiment  in which he is placed. Fox seemed really benevolent at heart. To feel those distresses which statesmen deplore, and to have set the fashion of humanity in his party, from being naturally and tenderly humane. His amiable private character is shewn so inartificially through the whole work that one rises with a strong impression of its truth which words arranged cannot give. He seems to have been free from vanity. I cannot believe that the motive of his political notions, he was lost in the generals, his ideas of right were grand and independent. But two gigantick for common use. Speculative good is often in its pursuit the cause of real evil and the ardent imprudent pursuit of perfection seems to be the rock on which the generous mind of Fox was rendered useless. But there is one thing must ever remain a spot upon him, an indelible warp in his rectitude. His approbation of Bonaparte. He did not seem misled by a high opinion of his abilities or virtues, but by a strong prejudice in favour of whatever was French in government. A prejudice the same appears in the approbation many lovers of liberty bestowed upon Cromwell after our revolution. Strange that the passion for liberty which Fox shewed at the commencement of the French Revolution should change into an opinion that as the French were too unstable to govern themselves the despotism of the first consul was the best thing they could have. Fox studied poetry and history. He did not see how a man could retain his eloquence without frequent reading of the first, Homer, Virgil, Europides, Ariosts, Spencer seem his great favorites. Feilding's novels he was a great admire of. He dided with the courage of a great man and passed through life with the good humour and good temper and accomodableness of an excellent woman.

 

 

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