Listings for Reader:
Walter Scott
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Jane Austen : [novels]
'By the way did you know Miss Austen Authoress of some novels which have a great deal of nature in them - nature in ordinary and middle life to be sure but valuable from its strong resemblance and correct drawing.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
Jane Austen : Pride and Prejudice
'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of "Pride and Prejudice". That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth : [novels]
'The women do this better - Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their portraits of real society, far superior to any thing Man, vain Man, has produced of the like nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
Susan Ferrier : [novels]
'The women do this better - Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their portraits of real society, far superior to any thing Man, vain Man, has produced of the like nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Scott Print: Book
James Hogg : [ballads]
'I allude to my old friend, and your acquaintance, the Ettrick Shepherd (for I will not mention him by the unpoetical name of Mr James Hogg) who is now, you will perceive by the enclosure, venturing upon the public with a collection of ballads. Some of them, if I (myself a ballad-monger) may be permitted to judge, have a very uncommon share of poetical merit'. [Walter Scott goes on to tell Charlotte Bury that he is attempting to raise a subscription for Hogg and he hopes she will use her influence to gain subscribers].
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
James Hogg : [Tales published in the Spy]
'Many of my friends are of the same opinion with you at least with regard to the tales of the Spy. Mr Walr. Scott says in a letter "If I may judge from my own feelings and the interest I took in them the tales are superior at least in management to any I have read: the stile of them is likewise quite new".' [this letter to Bernard Barton discusses publishing Hogg's tales from the periodical The Spy in book form]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
George Crabbe : Village, The
'[your letter] has gratified a wish of more than twenty years standing. It is I think fully that time since I was for a great part of a very snowy winter the inhabitant of an old house in the country in a course of poetical study so very like that of your very admirably painted young poet that I could hardly help saying "thats me" when I was reading the tale to my family. Among the very few books which fell under my hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Register one of which contained copious extracts from the "Village" & the "Library" particularly the conclusion of Book I of the former and an extract from the latter beginning with the desription of the old Romancers. [Scott describes how he memorised these but could not afford to buy the books themselves] You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a later period assume the rank in the public estimation which they so well deserve'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Crabbe : Library, The
'[your letter] has gratified a wish of more than twenty years standing. It is I think fully that time since I was for a great part of a very snowy winter the inhabitant of an old house in the country in a course of poetical study so very like that of your very admirably painted young poet that I could hardly help saying "thats me" when I was reading the tale to my family. Among the very few books which fell under my hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Register one of which contained copious extracts from the "Village" & the "Library" particularly the conclusion of Book I of the former and an extract from the latter beginning with the desription of the old Romancers. [Scott describes how he memorised these but could not afford to buy the books themselves] You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a later period assume the rank in the public estimation which they so well deserve'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Dodsley : [Annual Register - extract of Crabbe's 'The Library']
'[your letter] has gratified a wish of more than twenty years standing. It is I think fully that time since I was for a great part of a very snowy winter the inhabitant of an old house in the country in a course of poetical study so very like that of your very admirably painted young poet that I could hardly help saying "thats me" when I was reading the tale to my family. Among the very few books which fell under my hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Register one of which contained copious extracts from the "Village" & the "Library" particularly the conclusion of Book I of the former and an extract from the latter beginning with the desription of the old Romancers. [Scott describes how he memorised these but could not afford to buy the books themselves] You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a later period assume the rank in the public estimation which they so well deserve'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
Dodsley : [Annual Register - extract of Crabbe's 'The Village']
'[your letter] has gratified a wish of more than twenty years standing. It is I think fully that time since I was for a great part of a very snowy winter the inhabitant of an old house in the country in a course of poetical study so very like that of your very admirably painted young poet that I could hardly help saying "thats me" when I was reading the tale to my family. Among the very few books which fell under my hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Register one of which contained copious extracts from the "Village" & the "Library" particularly the conclusion of Book I of the former and an extract from the latter beginning with the desription of the old Romancers. [Scott describes how he memorised these but could not afford to buy the books themselves] You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a later period assume the rank in the public estimation which they so well deserve'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
George Crabbe : Patron, The
'[your letter] has gratified a wish of more than twenty years standing. It is I think fully that time since I was for a great part of a very snowy winter the inhabitant of an old house in the country in a course of poetical study so very like that of your very admirably painted young poet that I could hardly help saying "thats me" when I was reading the tale to my family. Among the very few books which fell under my hands was a volume or two of Dodsley's Register one of which contained copious extracts from the "Village" & the "Library" particularly the conclusion of Book I of the former and an extract from the latter beginning with the desription of the old Romancers. [Scott describes how he memorised these but could not afford to buy the books themselves] You may therefore guess my sincere delight when I saw your poems at a later period assume the rank in the public estimation which they so well deserve'.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Buchanan : [Latin poems and hymns]
'To my Gothic ear, indeed the "Stabat Mater", the "Dies Irae", and some of the other hymns of the Catholic Church are more solemn and affecting than the fine classical poetry of Buchanan; the one has the gloomy dignity of a Gothic church, and reminds us instantly of the worship to which it is dictated; the other is more like a Pagan temple, recalling to our memory the classical and fabulous deities.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
George Crabbe : [Works]
'[Crabbe had sent Scott, who already had one, a set of his works - he explained later that he'd intended it for Mrs Scott. Scott responded to the present,] to say the truth the auxiliary copy arrived in good time for my original copy suffers as much by its general popularity among my young people as a popular candidate from the hugs and embraces of his democratical admirers. The cleanness and accuracy of your painting whether natural or moral renders I have often remarked your poetry generally delightful to those whose youth might render them insensible to the other poetical beauties with which they abound. There are a sort of pictures (surely the most valuable were it but for that reason) which strike the uninitiated as much as they do the connoisseur though the last alone can render the reasons for his admiration'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
T. Crofton Croker : Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (vol. 1)
Walter Scott to John Wilson Croker, 26 March 1826: 'I enclose a letter for your funny namesake and kinsman, whose work entertains me very much.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Justinian : 'Institutes and Pandects'
Walter Scott to John Wilson Croker, 30 January 1829: 'I [...] rejoice to learn from yourself that you are seriously set about adding [as editor] to the charms of the most entertaining book in the world [Boswell's Life of Johnson]. I doubt my acquaintance with the most part of the book is too slight to furnish annotations. I was, when it was published, a raw young fellow, engrossing with the one hand, and thumbing the Institutes and Pandects of old Justinian with the other; little in the way of hearing any literary conversations or anecdotes.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
James Kirkton : Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the year 1678
'He has infinite wit and a great turn for antiquarian lore as the publications of Kirkton etc. bear witness.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Allan Ramsay : Tea-Table Miscellany: My Jo Janet
Walter Scott quotes four lines from 'My Jo Janet' in Allan Ramsay's 'Tea-Table Miscellany'.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
: The Vocal Miscellany
Walter Scott quotes two lines from 'The Vocal Miscellany': 'Come, come my Hearts of Gold' (163) and ' Every man take a glass in his hand' (103).
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Henry Fielding : Tom Thumb the Great
Walter Scott adapts one line from Henry Fielding's 'Tom Thumb the Great'.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Francis Jeffrey : Edinburgh Review: Combinations of Workmen
'Read Jeffrey's neat and well intended address to the Mechanics upon their combinations.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Shakespeare : Cymbeline
'Byron's example has formed a sort of Upper House of poetry. There is Lord Leveson Gower a very clever young man. Lord Porchester too, nephew to Mrs Scott of Harden, a young man who lies on the carpet and looks poetical and dandyish - fine lad too - But There be many peers Ere such another Byron.' (footnote - An allusion to Cymbeline)
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Virgil : Aeneid
'There are besides, Sir Adam Fergusson, Colin Mackenzie, James Hope, Dr. James Buchan, Claud Russell, and perhaps two or three more of and about the same time period. But Rari apparent nantes in gurgite vasto.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Shakespeare : Richard III
'I should be sorry the saying were verified in him So wise and young they say never live long.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Shakespeare : Midsummer Night's Dream
'Never was there such a representative of Wall in Pyramus and Thisbe.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Shakespeare : Julius Caesar
'Three days ago I would have been contented to buy this consola as Judy says, dearer than by a dozen falls in the mud - for had the great Constable fallen O my countrymen what a fall were there!'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
John Logan : Sermons
'Just as this is written enter my Lord of St Albans and Lady Charlotte to beg I recommend a book of sermons to Mrs. Coutts - much obliged for her good opinion - recommended Logan's - One poet should always speak for another - '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Shakespeare : Macbeth
Which resolutions with health and my habits of indutry will make me 'Sleep in spite of thunder'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Murray : Letter
'Yesterday I had a letter from Murray in answer to one I had written in something of a determined stile for I had no idea of permitting him to start from the course after my son giving up his situation and profession merely because a contributor or two chose to suppose gratuitously that Lockhart was too imprudent for the situation. My physic has wrought well for it brought a letter from Murray saying all was right (Footnote: Scott enclosed Murray's letter in one written to Lockhart the previous day. Murray writes that 'There is nothing to apprehend'), that D'Israeli was sent to me not to Lockhart, and that I was only invited to write two confidential letters, and other incoherencies which intimate his fright has got into another quarter. It is interlined and franked by Barrow (Footnote: That interlineation reads 'No one has any ill will against Mr Lockhart!!!') which shows that all is well and that John's induction in to his office will be easy and pleasant.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Letter
Richard Brinsley Sheridan : School for Scandal
'I begin to find like Joseph Surface that too good a character is inconvenient.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Richard Brinsley Sheridan : The Critic
'I don't know what I have done to gain so much credit for generosity but I suspect I owe it to being supposed, as Puff says, one of "those whom Heaven has blessed with afluence."'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Robert Southey :
A letter from Southey, malcontent about Murray having accomplished the change in the Quarterly without speaking to him and quoting the twaddle of some old woman, male or female, about Lockhart's earlier jeux d'espirt but concluding most kindly that in regard to my daughter and me he did not mean to withdraw. That he has done the yeoman's service to the Review is certain - and his genius, his universal reading, his powers of regular industry and at the outset a name which though less generally popular than it deserves is still to respectable to be withdrawn without injury.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Letter
George Gordon Lord Byron : memoranda
Sunday, 20 November 1825 (first entry): 'I have all my life regretted that I did not keep a regular [journal] [...] I have bethought me on seeing lately some volumes of Byron's notes that he probably had hit upon the right way of keeping such a memorandum-book by throwing aside all pretence to regularity and order and marking down events just as they occurred to recollection. I will try this plan'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Unknown
William Knox : The Lonely Hearth
Thursday, 8 December 1825: 'Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since [...] succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch [he] became too soon his own Master and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His poetical talent -- a very fine one -- then shewd itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry calld I think The Lonely Hearth [...] I am a bad promoter of subscriptions but I wished to do what I could for this lad whose talent I really admired [...] I tried to help him but there were temptations he could never resist [...] His last works were Spiritual hymns and which he wrote very well [...] all his works are grave and pensive a style'.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Knox : 'Spiritual hymns'
Thursday, 8 December 1825: 'Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since [...] succeeding to good farms under the Duke of Buccleuch [he] became too soon his own Master and plunged into dissipation and ruin. His poetical talent -- a very fine one -- then shewd itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry calld I think The Lonely Hearth [...] I am a bad promoter of subscriptions but I wished to do what I could for this lad whose talent I really admired [...] I tried to help him but there were temptations he could never resist [...] His last works were Spiritual hymns and which he wrote very well [...] all his works are grave and pensive a style'.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Harriet Wilson : Memoirs
Friday, 9 December 1825: 'The gay world has been kept in hot water lately by the impudent publication of the celebrated Harriet Wilson [...] She must have been assisted in the style spelling and diction though the attempt at wit is very poor -- that at pathos sickening. But there is some good retailing of conversations in which the stile of the speakers so far as known to me is exactly imitated [comments further on text and its author]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Davenant :
Sunday, 12 February 1826; 'Read a few pages of Will d'Avenant who was fond of having it supposed that Shakespeare intrigued with his mother. I think the pretension can only be treated as Phaeton's was according to Fielding's farce [Tumbledown Dick]. '"Besides by all the village boys I'm sham'd, You the Sun's son, you rascal? -- you be damnd." 'Egad I'll put that into Woodstock.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
G. Chastellain : Vie de Jacques de Lalaine
Sunday, 19 February 1826; 'Being troubled with thick-coming fancies and a slight palpitation of the heart I have been reading the Chronicle of the Good Knight Messire Jacques de Lalain, curious but dull from the constant repetition of the same species of combats in the same stile and phrase [...] It passes the time however, especially in that listless mood when your mind is half on your book half on something else: you catch something to arrest the attention every now and then and what you miss is not worth going back upon. Idle man's studies in short. [goes on to muse upon possibilities for own imaginative use of episodes in text]'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Galt : The Omen
Thursday, 23 February 1826: 'Read a little volume called the OMEN very well written, deep and powerfull language [...] it is [John Gibson] Lockhart or I am strangely deceived -- it is passd for Wilson's though, but Wilson has more of the falsetto of assumed sentiment, less of the depth of gloomy and powerful feeling.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Dr Arnott : An Account of the Last Illness, Decease, etc. of Napoleon Bonaparte
Thursday, 2 March 1826: 'Slept indifferently and dreamd of Napoleon's last moments and last illness of which I was reading a medical account last night by Dr. Arnott. Horrible death -- a cancer on the pylorus'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
M. De Pastoret : Le Duc de Guise a Naples etc. en 1647 et 1648
Wednesday, 8 March 1826: 'Being jaded and sleepy I took up Le Duc de Guise en Naples. I think this, with the old Memoires on the same subject [...] would enable me to make a pretty essay for the Quarterly [Review].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Captain George Longmore : Tales of Chivalry and Romance
Friday, 10 March 1826: 'Breakfasted with me Mr. Francks [...] and Captain Longmore of the Royal Staff. He has written a book of poetry, Tales of Chivalry and Romance, far from bad yet wants spirit'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Henry Weber : Metrical Romances
Friday, 10 March 1826: '[Henry Weber] was a man of very superior attainments, an excellent linguist and geographer and a remarkable antiquary. He publishd a collection of antient Romances superior I think to the elaborate Ritson.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Ritson : Ancient English Metrical Romances
Friday, 10 March 1826: '[Henry Weber] was a man of very superior attainments, an excellent linguist and geographer and a remarkable antiquary. He publishd a collection of antient Romances superior I think to the elaborate Ritson.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan : O'Donnel
Tuesday, 14 March 1826: 'I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the few last days by reading over Lady Morgan's novel of O'Donnel which has some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being so much pleased with it at first -- there is a want of story always fatal to a book the first reading and it is well if it gets the chance of a second [...] 'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with [...] What a pity such a gifted creature died so early.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Jane Austen : Pride and Prejudice
Tuesday, 14 March 1826: 'I have amused myself occasionally very pleasantly during the few last days by reading over Lady Morgan's novel of O'Donnel which has some striking and beautiful passages of situation and description and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being so much pleased with it at first -- there is a want of story always fatal to a book the first reading and it is well if it gets the chance of a second [...] 'Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with [...] What a pity such a gifted creature died so early.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Charlotte Smith : Desmond
Thursday, 16 March 1826: 'In the evening after dinner read Mrs. Charlotte Smith's novel Desmond, decidedly the worst of her compositions.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
T. H. Lister : Granby
Tuesday, 28 March 1826: 'Reading at intervals a novel called Grandby [sic] one of that very difficult class which aspires to describe the actual current of society; whose colours are so evanescent that it is difficult to fix them on the canvas. It is well written but over labourd -- too much attempt to put the reader exactly up to the thoughts and sentiments of the parties -- The women do this better -- Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their portraits of real society far superior to anything Man vain Man has produced of the like nature.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Doctor Oudney : Narrative of Travels in Northern and Central Africa in 1822, 1823, and 1834 [sic in source]
Wednesday, 5 April 1826: 'Read Clapperton's journey and Denman's [sic] into Bornou -- very entertaining and less botheration about mineralogy botany and so forth than usual. Pity Africa picks up so many brave men however.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
J. G. Lockhart : review of Thomas Moore, Life of Sheridan
Sunday 9 April 1826: 'Lockhart's Review -- Don't like his article on Sheridan's Life. There is no breadth in it, no general views -- the whole flung away in smart but party criticism [...] he lets himself too easily into that advocatism of stile which is that of a pleader not a judge or a critic and is particularly unsatisfactory to the reader.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
: 'The murder of [William] Weare by Thurtell and Co. at Gill's-Hill, in Hertfordshire'
Sunday, 16 July 1826: 'Very unsatisfactory to-day. Sleepy, stupid, indolent -- finished arranging the books and after that was totally useless -- unless it can be called study that I slumbrd for three or four hours over a variorum edition of the Gill-Hill's tragedy. Admirable recipe for low spirits [comments further on text]'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Middleton : Michaelmas Term
Tuesday, 1 August 1826: 'Yesterday evening [...] I took to arranging the old plays of which Terry had brought me about a dozen and dipping into them scrambled through two -- One called Michaelmas Term full of traits of manners and another a sort of bouncing tragedy called The Hector of Germany or The Palsgrave. The last, worthless in the extreme, is like many of the plays in the beginning of the 17th. Century written to a good tune [goes on to comment further on language in seventeenth- century drama].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Wentworth Smith : The Hector of Germany, or The Palsgrave
Tuesday, 1 August 1826: 'Yesterday evening [...] I took to arranging the old plays of which Terry had brought me about a dozen and dipping into them scrambled through two -- One called Michaelmas Term full of traits of manners and another a sort of bouncing tragedy called The Hector of Germany or The Palsgrave. The last, worthless in the extreme, is like many of the plays in the beginning of the 17th. Century written to a good tune [goes on to comment further on language in seventeenth- century drama].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Ellis : Specimens of the Early English Poets
'Scott admired [George Ellis's] Specimens of the Early English Poets and Specimens of Early English Romances, and their common interests drew them into close and friendly correspondence.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Ellis : Specimens of Early English Romances
'Scott admired [George Ellis's] Specimens of the Early English Poets and Specimens of Early English Romances, and their common interests drew them into close and friendly correspondence.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Jane Austen : Emma
'[J. G.] Lockhart says that [Scott] used to read aloud from Emma and Northanger Abbey to the family circle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Jane Austen : Northanger Abbey
'[J. G.] Lockhart says that [Scott] used to read aloud from Emma and Northanger Abbey to the family circle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Harrison Ainsworth : Sir John Chiverton
Tuesday, 17 October 1826: 'Read over Sir John Chiverton and Brambletye House, novels in what I may surely claim as the stile [quotes from Jonathan Swift, "On the Death of Dr. Swift," lls. 57-8] '"Which I was born to introduce Refined it first and showd its use." 'They are both clever books, one in imitation of the days of chivalry, the other by John Smith [...] dated in the time of the civil wars and introducing historical characters. I read both with great interest during the journey [to London].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Smith : Brambletye House
Tuesday, 17 October 1826: 'Read over Sir John Chiverton and Brambletye House, novels in what I may surely claim as the stile [quotes from Jonathan Swift, "On the Death of Dr. Swift," lls. 57-8] '"Which I was born to introduce Refined it first and showd its use." 'They are both clever books, one in imitation of the days of chivalry, the other by John Smith [...] dated in the time of the civil wars and introducing historical characters. I read both with great interest during the journey [to London].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Robert Southey : History of the Peninsular War
Thursday, 19 October 1826: 'I rose at my usual time [7 am] but could not write so read Southey['s] History of the Peninsular War. It is very good indeed, honest English good principle in every line, but there are many prejudices and there is a tendency to augment a work already too long by saying all that can be said of the history of ancient times appertaining to every place mentioned.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
R. B. Sheridan : The Critic
Thursday, 4 January 1827: 'After tea I broke off work and read my young folks the farce of The Critic and "merry folks were we."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Foote : The Commissary
Saturday, 6 January 1827: 'In the evening read Foote's farce of the Commissary, said to have been levelled at Sir Laurence Dundas.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: report of funeral of William Gifford
Wednesday, 17 January 1827: 'I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford's funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author and his Satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashd [sic] at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugd the world long enough [goes on to comment further, and to reproduce two six-line passages from 'Ode to the Rev. John Ireland,' from the Maeviad].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Newspaper
William Gifford : translation of Juvenal
Wednesday, 17 January 1827: 'I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford's funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author and his Satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashd at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugd the world long enough [goes on to comment further, and to reproduce two six-line passages from 'Ode to the Rev. John Ireland,' from the Maeviad].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Gifford : The Baviad
Wednesday, 17 January 1827: 'I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford's funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author and his Satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashd at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugd the world long enough [goes on to comment further, and to reproduce two six-line passages from 'Ode to the Rev. John Ireland,' from the Maeviad].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Gifford : The Maeviad
Wednesday, 17 January 1827: 'I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford's funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author and his Satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashd at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugd the world long enough [goes on to comment further, and to reproduce two six-line passages from 'Ode to the Rev. John Ireland,' from the Maeviad].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Christian Isobel Johnson : Elizabeth de Bruce
Tuesday, 23 January 1827: 'Betwixt dinner and tea while husbanding a tumbler of whisky and water I read the new novel Elizabeth de Bruce -- part of it that is'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Christian Isobel Johnson : Elizabeth de Bruce
Saturday, 27 January 1827: 'Read Elizth. de Bruce -- it is very clever but does not show much originality: the characters though very entertaining are in the manner of other authors and the finishd and filldup portraits of which the sketches are to be found elsewhere. One is too apt to feel on such occasions the pettied resentment that you might entertain against one who had poachd on your manor. But [...] a claim set up on having been the first who betook himself to the illustration of some particular class of characters or department of life is no more a right of monopoly than that asserted by the old buccaneers by setting up a wooden cross and killing an Indian or two on some new discovered Island.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Shakespeare : Henry IV
'An excellent plot, excellent friends, and full of preparations'. Footnote: An allusion to Hotspur's plot in I Henry IV, ii. 3.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
: Bible: Ecclesiastes
'I am come to the time when those who look out at the windows shall be darkend.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Lord Frederick Leveson Gower : Tale of the Mill
Saturday, 10 February 1827: 'I got a present of Lord Frederick Leveson Gower's printed but unpublishd "Tale of the Mill" -- it is a fine tale of terror in itself and very happily brought out. He has certainly a true taste for poetry. I do not know why, but from my childhood I have seen something fearful or melancholy at least about a Mill [speculates on possible reasons for this] [...] So I enterd into the spirit of the terror with which Lord Frederick has invested his haunted spot.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
Horace Walpole : Historic Doubts on Richard III
Thursday, 1 March 1827: 'By the bye it is the anniversary of Bosworth field. In former days Richd. IIId. was always acted at London on this day [...] Walpole's Historic Doubts threw a mist about this Reign. It is very odd to see how his mind dwells upon [them] at first as the mere sport of imagination till at length they become such Dalilahs of his imagination that he deems it far worse than infidelity to doubt his Doubts.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Samuel Foote : The Maid of Bath
'Seams will slit and elbows will out quoth the tailor - and as I was fifty four on 15 August last my mortal vestments are none of the newest.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Sir James Melville : Memoirs
Saturday, 10 March 1827: 'About three o'clock I got to a meeting of the Bannatyne club [...] Thomson is superintending a capital edition of Sir James Melville's Memoirs. It is brave to see how he wags his Scots tongue and what a difference there is in the force and firmness of his language compared to the mincing English edition in which he has hitherto been alone known.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
: Almacks
Monday, 12 March 1827: 'I have been trying to read a new novel which I have heard praised. It is calld Almacks an[d] the author has so well succeeded in describing the cold selfish fopperies of the time that the copy is almost as dull as the original.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Robert Ward : De Vere
Sunday, 22 April 1827: 'Wrought [i.e. worked] in the afternoon and tried to read De Vere, a sensible but heavy book written by an able hand -- but a great bore for all that'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Captain Thomas Hamilton : The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton
Sunday, 13 May 1827: 'Spent the day, which was delightful, wandering from place to place in the woods, sometimes reading the new and interesting volumes of Cyril Thornton, sometimes chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy which strangely alternated in my mind idly stirred by the succession of a thousand vague thoughts and fears'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Sir James Melville : Memoirs
Friday, 8 June 1827: 'I was fatigued and sleepy when I go[t] home [from business meetings] and nodded, I think, over Sir James Melville's Memoirs.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Benjamin Disraeli : Vivian Grey
Monday, 11 June 1827: 'The attendance on the committee and afterwards the Gnl meeting of the Oil Gas Company took up my morning and the rest dribbled away in correcting proofs and trifling, reading among the rest an odd volume of Vivian Grey -- clever but not so much so as to make [me] in this sultry weather go up stairs to the drawing room to seek the other volumes.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Robert Ward : De Vere
Wednesday, 4 July 1827: 'Read De Vere the rest. It is well written in point of language and sentiment but has too little action in it to be termd a pleasing Novel. Every thing is brought out by dialogue, or worse, through the medium of the author's own reflections, whiich is the clumsiest of all expedients.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Walter Scott : article on E. T. W. Hoffmann
Wednesday, 1 August 1827: 'Smoked a cigar after dinner, laughd with my daughters and read them the review of Hoffmann's production out of Gillies's new Foreign review.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
Pryce Gordon : Memoirs
Friday, 3 August 1827: 'Huntley Gordon lent me a volume of his father's Manuscript Memoirs. They are not without interest, for Pryce Gordon though a bit of a roue, is a clever fellow in his way [comments further on text].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Unknown
: 'Refutation' of Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon
Friday, 14 September 1827: 'Read a Refutation as it calls itself of Napoleon's history. It is so very polite and accomodating that every third word is a concession -- the work of a man able to judge distinctly on specific facts but erroneous in his general results. He will say the same of me perhaps.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Jane Austen :
Tuesday, 18 September 1827: 'Whiled away the evening over one of Miss Austen's Novels; there is a truth of painting in her writings which always delights me. They do not it is true get above the middle classes of Society. But there she is inimitable.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
:
Thursday, 27 September 1827: 'We dined at Gattonside with Mr. Bembridge who kindly presented me with 6 bottles of super-excellent Jamaica Rum and with a manuscript collection of poetry said to be Swift's hand writing, which it resembles. It is I think poor Stella's. Nothing very new in it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Unknown
Anne Grant : Memoirs of a Highland Lady
'Some months since I joined with other literary folks in subscribing a petition for a pension to Mrs. G- of L-n which we thought was a tribute merited by her works as an authoress and in my opinion much more by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which she had borne a succession of great domestic calamity.' Footnote: Mrs Anne Grant, widow of minister of Laggan, and author of Letters from the Moutain, Superstitions of the Highlands, and Memoirs of a Highland Lady.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: Gazette
Wednesday, 14 November 1827: 'Read the Gazette of the great battle of Navarrino in which we have thumped the Turks very well.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Newspaper
Robert Chambers : History of the Rebellion 1745-6
Thursday, 15 November 1827: 'Met with Chambers and complimented him about his making a clever book of the 1745 for Constable's Miscellany. It is really a lively work and must have a good sale.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Cooper : Red Rover
Monday, 14 January 1828: 'I read Cooper's new novel work, the Red Rover; the current of the [novel] rolls entirely upon the Ocean. Something there is too much of nautical language; in fact it overpowers every thing else. But so people [sic] once take an interest in a description they will swallow a great deal which they do not understand [...] He has much genius, a powerful conception of character and force of execution. The same ideas I see recur upon him that haunt other folks. The graceful form of the spars and the tracery of the ropes and cordage against the sky is too often dwelt upon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
James Fenimore Cooper : Prairie
Monday, 28 January 1828: 'I have read Cooper's Prairie, better I think than his Red Rover in which you never got foot on shore and to understand entirely the incidents of the story it requires too much nautical language. It is very clever though.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Theodore Hook : Sayings and Doings (third series)
Thursday 21 February 1828: 'Last night after dinner I rested from my work and read third part of Sayings and Doings, which shows great knowledge of life in a certain sphere and very considerable powers of wit which somewhat damages the effect of his tragic [scenes]. But he is an able writer and so much of his work is well said that it will carry through what is manque.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Wilson : review of Leigh Hunt, Anecdotes of Byron
Saturday, 23 February 1828: 'I saw at the printing office [Ballantyne's] a part of a review on Leigh Hunt's Anecdotes of Byron by Wilson. It is written with power (apparently by Professor Wilson) but with a degree of passion wihch rather diminishes the effect, for nothing can more lessen the dignity of the satirist than being or seeming to be in a passion.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Gerald Griffin : Tales of the Munster Festivals
Thursday, 13 March 1828: 'I found that like the foolish virgins the servants had omitted to get oil for my lamp so I was obliged to be idle all the evening. But though I had a diverting book, the Tales of the Munster Festivals, yet an evening without writing hung heavy on my hand. The tales are admirable. But they have one fault, that the crisis is in more cases than one protracted after a keen interest has been excited, to explain and to resume parts of the story which should have been told before. Scenes of mere amusement are often introduced betwixt the crisis of the plot and the final catastrophe. This is impolitic. But the scenes and characters are traced by a firm, bold and true pencil and my very criticism shows that [the] catastrophe is interesting, otherwise who would care for its being interrupted?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
James Thomson : Tales of an Antiquary
Friday, 28 March 1828: 'Read Tales of an Antiquary, one of the chime of bells which I have some hand in setting a ringing. He really is entitled to the name of an Antiquary. But he has too much description in proportion to the action. There is a capital wardrope [sic] of properties but the performers do not act up to their character.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Frances Burney : notes 'about her novels'
Monday, 26 May 1828: 'I walkd down to call with [Samuel] Rogers on Mrs. D'Arblay. She shewd me some notes which she was making about her novels which she induced me to believe had been recollected and jotted down in compliance with my suggestions on a former occasion.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Unknown
Lockhart : Life of Burns
Thursday, 29 May 1828: 'I have amused myself to-day with reading Lockhart's Life of Burns which is very well written -- in fact an admirable thing. He has judicious[ly] slurd over his vices and follies [...] as the Dead corpse is straightend, swathd and made decent so ought the character of such an inimitable genius as Burns to be tenderly handled after the death. The knowledge of his various weaknesses or vices are only subjects of sorrow to the well disposed and of triumph to the profligate.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Colonel W. F. P. Napier : History of War in the Peninsula (vol. 1)
Saturday, 31 May 1828: 'I have finishd Napier's War in the Peninsula. It is written in the spirit of a Liberal but the narrative is distinct and clear and I should suppose accurate [comments further on specific points in text] [...] Good even to him untill next volume which I shall long to see.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: The Gentleman's Magazine
Sunday, 1 June 1828: 'We reachd Carlisle at seven o' clock and were housed for the night. My books being exhausted I lighted on an odd volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, a work in which as in a pawnbroker's shop much of real curiosity and value are [sic] stowd away and conceald amid the frippery and trumpery of those reverend old gentlewomen who were the regular correspondents of the work.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Serial / periodical
: Scotch Trials, containing Trial of Thomas Muir, Esq. etc.
Tuesday, 3 June 1828: 'I smoked a segar, slept away an hour and read Mure of Auchendrayne's trial and thus ended the day.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: Scotch Trials, containing Trial of Thomas Muir, Esq. etc.
Wednesday, 4 June 1828: 'Started [for Edinburgh] at half past four and arrived at home if we must call it so at nine o'clock in the evening. I employd my leisure in the chaise to peruse Mure of Auchendrane's trial out of which something might be cooperd up for the publick. It is one of the wildest stories I ever read. Something might surely be twisted out of it.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Bell : 'specimen of a historical novel'
Wednesday, 23 January 1829: 'Mr. Bell sends me a spec[i]ment [sic] of a Historical novel but he goes not the way to write it. He is too general and not sufficient[ly] minute. It is not easy to convey this to an author with the necessary attention to his feelings and yet in good faith and sincerity it must be done.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
H. U. Tighe : Historical Account of Cumnor ... illustrative of the Romance of Kenilworth
Saturday, 31 January 1829: 'Lookd over Cumnor Hall by Mr. Usher Tighe of Oxford.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
The Revd. Dr. R. Henry : History of Great Britain; from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the death of Henry VIII
Tuesday, 10 February 1829: 'I read over Henry's History of Henry VI and Edward IV. He is but a stupid historian after all.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Robert Chambers : Picture of Scotland
Sunday, 15 February 1829: 'I wrought [i.e. worked at writing] to day but not much -- rather dawdled and took to reading Chambers' Beauties of Scotland which would be admirable if they were more accurate. He is a clever young fellow but hurts himself by too much haste.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
The Revd. C. H. Hartshorne : Ancient Metrical Tales
Friday, 20 February 1829: 'I glanced over some romances metrical publishd by Hartshorne several of which have not seen the light. They are considerably curious but I was surprized to see them mingled with "Blanchflour" and "Florice" and one or two others which might have been spared. There is no great display of notes or prolegomena and there is moreover no glossary. But the work is well edited.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: Memoires de Vidocque, Chef de la Police de Surete jusqu'en 1827
Saturday, 28 February 1829: 'Read part of a curious work calld Memoirs of Vidocque, a fellow who was at the head of Bonaparte's police. It is a picaresque tale, in other words a romance of roguery. The whole seems much exaggerated and got up but I suppose there is truth au fond.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Henry Mackenzie : The Man of Feeling
'Now hating to deal with ladies when they are in an unreasonable humour I have got the goodhumoured Man of Feeling to find out the lady's mind and I take on myself the task of making her peace with Lord M-' (Footnote: Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831) author of Man of Feeling).
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
T.R. Malthus : Principle of Population
'Colonel R. told me that the European government had discoverd an ingenious mode of diminishing the number of burnings of widows...This is the reverse of our system of increasing game by shooting the old cock-birds. It is a system would aid Malthus rarely.' (Footnote: Scott sent to Lockhart on 17 February a short article on the burnings for publication in the Representative).
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Vidocque : Memoires de Vidocque, Chef de la Police de Surete jusqu'en 1827
Sunday, 1 March 1829: 'I labourd heard [i.e. 'hard'?] the whole day and between hands refreshd myself with Vidocque's Memoirs.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Reginald Heber : Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India
Wednesday, 12 March 1829: 'I read Reginald Heber's journal after dinner. I spent some merry days with him at Oxford when he was writing his prize-poem. He was then a gay young fellow, a wit and a satirist and burning for literary fame. My laurels were beginning to bloom and we were both mad-caps -- Who would have fortold our future lot?'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: Prayers
Sunday, 5 April 1829: 'Read prayers to what remains of our [house] party, being Anne [daughter], my niece Anne, the four Skenes and William Forbes.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Duke de Leviz : The Carbonaro, A Piedmontese Tale
Thursday, 9 April 1829: 'I got a book from the Duke de Leviz, the same gentleman with whom I had an awkward meeting at Abbotsford [in August 1828] owing to his having forgot his credentials which left me at an unpleasant doubt as to his character and identity. His book is inscribed to me with hyperbolical praises [...] The book is better than would be expected from the exaggerated nonsense of the dedication.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Walter Scott : The Doom of Devorgoil
Sunday, 26 April 1829: 'Looking for something I fell in with the Little drama long amissing calld the Doom of Devorgoil. I believe it was out of mere contradiction that I sate down to read and correct it merely because I would not be bound to do aught that seemd compulsory [i.e. current novel in progress]. So I scribbled at [the] piece of nonsense till two o'clock [...] spent the evening in reading the Doom of Devorgoil to the girls who seemd considerably interested. Anne objects to the mingling of the comick goblinry which is comic with the serious which is tragic. After all I could greatly improve [it] and it would [not] be a bad composition of that odd kind to some pick-nick receptacle of all things.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Manuscript: Unknown
William Mudford : The Five Nights of St Albans
Wednesday, 10 June 1829: 'I have been reading over the Five Days of St. Albans [sic], very much [quotes Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I.72] extra moenia flammantia mundi ['Beyond the flaming walls of the universe'] and possessed of considerable merit though the author loves to play at Cherry pit with Satan.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Mudford : The Five Nights of St Albans
Friday, 12 June 1829: 'After dinner I wrote to Walter, Charles, Lockhart and John Murray and took a screed of my novel so concluded the evening idly enough.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
General Miller : Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru
Monday, 15 June 1829: 'I read Genl. Miller's account of the South American War. I liked it the better that Basil Hall brought the author to breakfast with [me] in Edinr., a fin[e] tall military figure, his left hand withered like the prophet's gourd and plenty of scars on him. There have been rare doings in that vast continent but the strife is too distant, the country too unknown, to have the effect upon the imagination which European wars produce.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Galt : The Spaewife
Sunday, 19 July 1829: 'I read the Spae-wife of Galt. There is something good in it and the language is occasionally very forcible but he has made his story difficult to understand by adopting a region of history little known and having many heroes of the same name whom it is not easy to keep separate in his memory. Some of the traits of the Spaewife who conceits herself to be a Changeling or Ta'en away is very good indeed. His highland Chief is a kind of Caliban and speaks like Caliban a jargon never spoken on earth but full of effect for all that.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Bunyan : John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, With Life of the Author
Saturday, 3 July 1830: 'I read Southey's Pilgrim's Progress and think of reviewing the same [...] Read Hone's Every day Book and with a better opinion of him than I expected from his anti-religious frenzy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
William Hone : Every-Day Book and Table Book: or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs, and Events, etc.
Saturday, 3 July 1830: 'I read Southey's Pilgrim's Progress and think of reviewing the same [...] Read Hone's Every day Book and with a better opinion of him than I expected from his anti-religious frenzy.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
John Galt : Lawrie Todd
Sunday, 11 July 1830: 'I have begun Lawrie Todd which ought considering the author's indisputed talents to have been better. He might have laid [James Fenimore] Cowper aboard but he follows far behind. No wonder. Galt, poor fellow, was in the King's Bench when he wrote it; no whetter of genius is necessity though said to be the mother of invention.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: Civil war tracts
Sunday, 26 December 1830: 'I shut myself up in Mr. [Henry] Scott's room. He has lately become purchaser of his Grandfather's valuable Library which was collected by Pope's Lord Marchmount. Part of it is a very valuable collection of Tracts during the great Civill war. I spent several hours in turning them over but I could not look them through with any accuracy. I passed my time very pleasantly and made some extracts however, and will resume my research another day.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
: 'German novels'
Sunday, 27 February 1831: 'Being Saturday no Mr. Laidlaw [amanuensis] came yesterday evening nor to-day being Sunday. Truth is I began to fear I was working too hard and gave myself to putting things in order and working at the magnum [edition of his collected novels] and reading stupid German novels in hopes a thought will strike me when I am half occupied with other things.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Liddell : The Savoyard
Monday, 4 April 1831: 'Mr. Liddell and Hay Mackenzie left us this morning. Liddell shewd me yesterday a very good old fashioned poem worthy of Pope or Churchill in old fashioned hexameters, called "The Savoyard". He has promised me a copy for it is still being printed. There are some characters very well drawn. The force of it belies the author's character of a Dandie too hastily ascribed to its author.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Captain Basil Hall : Fragments of Voyages and Travels
Wednesday, 13 April 1831: 'My nap [same afternoon] was a very short one and was agreeably replaced by Basil Hall's Fragments of Voyages. Every thing about the i[n]side of a vessell is interesting and my friend has the great sense to know this is the case.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
E.T.A. Hoffman : The Devil's Elixirs
'He [Hoffman] had made some translations from the German which he does extremely [well], for give him ideas and he never wants choice of good words, and Lockhart had got Constable to offer some sort of terms for them.' (footnote: Scott owned his translation of Hoffman's The Devil's Elixirs, 1824)
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Smith : New Forest
Wednesday, 26 October 1831: 'Here we are [at Portsmouth] still fixd by the inexorable wind [...] I engaged in a new novel by Mr. Smith calld New Forest. It is written in an old stile calculated to meet the popular ideas, somewhat like Man as He is Not [by Robert Bage] and that class. The author's opinions seem rather to sit loose upon [him] and to be adopted for the nonce and not very well brought out. His idea of a heroe is an American philosopher with all the affected virtues of a republican which no man believes in. This is all very tiresome not to be able to walk abroad for an instant but to be kept in this old house which they call the Fountain [inn], a mansion made of wood in imitation of a ship.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Gordon Lord Byron : Childe Harold's Pilgrimage I and II
Walter Scott to John Murray, 2 July 1812, with enclosed letter of appreciation to Lord Byron: 'I trouble you with a few lines to his Lordship [...] I hope he will not consider it as intrusive in a veteran author to pay my debt of gratitude for the high pleasure I have received from the perusal of "Childe Harold," which is certainly the most original poem which we have had this many a day'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Gordon Lord Byron : The Bride of Abydos
Walter Scott to John Murray, 6 January 1814: 'I have read Lord Byron's "Bride of Abydos" with great delight, and only delay acknowledging the receipt of a copy from the author till I can send him a copy of the "Life of Swift."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Gordon Lord Byron : Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III
John Murray to Byron, 22 January 1817: 'I had a letter from Mr. Ward, to whom, at Paris, I sent the poems, and he is delighted; and Mr. Canning, most particularly so with the third canto [...] Walter Scott always mentions you with kindness in his letters, and he thinks nothing better than Canto III.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
George Gordon Lord Byron : Cain, a Mystery
Walter Scott to John Murray, regarding Byron's Cain: 'I do not know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings. He has certainly matched Milton upon his own ground. Some part of the language is bold, and may shock one class of readers [...] But then they must condemn "Paradise Lost" if they have a mind to be consistent [comments further].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
George Gordon Lord Byron : The Siege of Corinth
'When Murray was about to publish Byron's "Siege of Corinth" and "Parisina," he promised to send the early sheets to Blackwood, who proposed to hold a dinner in honour of the occasion, to which Scott, Erskine, and James Ballantyne were to be invited. Scott [...] unfortunately, could not accept the invitation for the day named; but, to secure his attendance, the dinner was put off for a week, and then he made his appearance with Erskine and Ballantyne. The poems were read, to the immense delight of the audience.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
George Gordon Lord Byron : Parisina
'When Murray was about to publish Byron's "Siege of Corinth" and "Parisina," he promised to send the early sheets to Blackwood, who proposed to hold a dinner in honour of the occasion, to which Scott, Erskine, and James Ballantyne were to be invited. Scott [...] unfortunately, could not accept the invitation for the day named; but, to secure his attendance, the dinner was put off for a week, and then he made his appearance with Erskine and Ballantyne. The poems were read, to the immense delight of the audience.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
Henry Mackenzie :
A rare thing this literature or love of fame or notoriety which accompanies it. Here is Mr H.M. [Henry Mackenzie] on the very brink of human dissolution as actively anxious about it as if the curtain must not soon be closed on that and every thing else...No man is less known from his writings.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Archibald Constable : Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in the Various Departments of Literature, the Sciences, & the Arts
Received a letter from Sir W. Knighton mentioning that the King acquiesced in my proposal that Constable's Miscellany should be dedicated to him.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Isaac D'Israeli : Curiosities of Literature
Walter Scott to William Blackwood, following a period of illness: 'I am greatly better, but not able to write. The author's copy of the third volume of the "Curiosities of Literature" reached me two or three days ago, as Robinson Crusoe says, to my exceeding refreshment.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Patrick Walker : 'Lives of Cameron [etc]'
Walter Scott to John Murray, 23 March 1818: 'I laid Kirkton aside when half finished, from a desire to get the original edition of the "Lives of Cameron," &c., by Patrick Walker, which I had not seen since a boy, and now I have got it, and find, as I suspected, that some curious morceaux have been cut out by subsequent editors.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Patrick Walker : 'Lives of Cameron [etc]'
Walter Scott to John Murray, 23 March 1818: 'I laid Kirkton aside when half finished, from a desire to get the original edition of the "Lives of Cameron," &c., by Patrick Walker, which I had not seen since a boy, and now I have got it, and find, as I suspected, that some curious morceaux have been cut out by subsequent editors.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
James Morier : Hajji Baba
'"Hajji Baba" was more read than any other of [James Morier's] works. Sir Walter Scott was especially pleased with it, and remarked that "Hajji Baba" might be termed the Oriental "Gil Blas."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Thomas Moore : Life of Byron
John Gibson Lockhart to John Murray, 29 September 1829: 'Sir Walter [Scott] has just read the first 120 pages of Moore's "Life of Byron"; and he says they are charming, and not a syllable de trop.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Knox : Lonely Hearth
'Talking of Vixisse it may not be impertinent to notice that Knox (Footnote: William Knox), a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since...His poetical talent - a very fine one - then shewd itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry calld I think the Lonely Hearth, far superior to those of Michael Bruce, whose consumption by the way has been the life of his verses.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Michael Bruce : Elegy - Written in Spring
'Talking of Vixisse it may not be impertinent to notice that Knox, a young poet of considerable talent, died here a week or two since...His poetical talent - a very fine one - then shewd itself in a fine strain of pensive poetry calld I think the Lonely Hearth, far superior to those of Michael Bruce (Footnote: Scott probably had in his mind his 'Elegy - Written in Spring'), whose consumption by the way has been the life of his verses.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Ben Jonson : Everyman in his Humour
'His last works were Spiritual hymns and which he wrote very well. In his own line of Society he was said to exhibit infinite humour but all his works are grave and pensive a stile, perhaps like Master Stephen's melancholy affected for the nonce (Footnote: an allusion to Ben Jonson's Everyman in his Humour).'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
Harriet Wilson : Memoirs
'The gay world has been kept in hot water lately by the impudent publication of the celebrated Harriet Wilson.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Unknown
Amelia Opie : Father and Daughter
On literary life of Amelia Opie, 1804-25: 'It must have been something [...] to breakfast with Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott: the gifted man condescending to tell her "that he had cried more over her 'Father and Daughter' than he cried over such things."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth : Simple Susan
'[Walter Scott] read with much delight, and made his children read, Rosamond and the Purple Jar and Simple Susan; even, perhaps, the conversation on scientific subjects between Harry and Lucy and their father, though in the character and teaching of that amazing parent Scott found much room for criticism.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth : Rosamond
'[Walter Scott] read with much delight, and made his children read, Rosamond and the Purple Jar and Simple Susan; even, perhaps, the conversation on scientific subjects between Harry and Lucy and their father, though in the character and teaching of that amazing parent Scott found much room for criticism.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth : [?The] Purple Jar
'[Walter Scott] read with much delight, and made his children read, Rosamond and the Purple Jar and Simple Susan; even, perhaps, the conversation on scientific subjects between Harry and Lucy and their father, though in the character and teaching of that amazing parent Scott found much room for criticism.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth : Harry and Lucy
'[Walter Scott] read with much delight, and made his children read, Rosamond and the Purple Jar and Simple Susan; even, perhaps, the conversation on scientific subjects between Harry and Lucy and their father, though in the character and teaching of that amazing parent Scott found much room for criticism.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
J. G. Lockhart : Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk
Charlotte Sophia Scott to Miss Millar (former governess), 5 July 1819: 'I would advise you to read a new book, which will be out soon called Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk. It is one of the most clever, and at the same time rather severe books that has been written for ages. That is Papa's opinion.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott
William Shakespeare : plays
'Under [Anne Rutherford Scott, his mother's] strong encouragement Scott, at the age of seven, read aloud Shakespeare's plays and the Arabian Nights in the family circle'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
: The Arabian Nights' Entertainment
'Under [Anne Rutherford Scott, his mother's] strong encouragement Scott, at the age of seven, read aloud Shakespeare's plays and the Arabian Nights in the family circle'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott Print: Book
Robert Burns : Tam o' Shanter
'The storm around might roar and rustle We didna mind the storm a whistle'.
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