Listings for Reader:
Anne Grant
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George Gordon, Lord Byron : [poems]
'Anne Grant loved books, but felt guilty about literary pleasure: she enjoyed Byron's poems but worried about their morality, and was "fully convinced of the bad tendency" of the works of Peter Pindar because of "the amusement I derive from them".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Peter Pindar : [unknown]
'Anne Grant loved books, but felt guilty about literary pleasure: she enjoyed Byron's poems but worried about their morality, and was "fully convinced of the bad tendency" of the works of Peter Pindar because of "the amusement I derive from them".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Unknown
Homer : Odyssey
Reader makes several references to the work: V.1, p.9, p.15, p.25, p.142; V.2 p.200. eg.: V.1 p.9 'Well, now I was very sure I would not smile this summer, nor yet read any book but the Bible and Night Thoughts*; even the Odyssey was to be rejected'. *'The Night Thoughts, and the Odyssey, were favourite studies among these friends, to which they were wont to make many serious and playful allusions' [footnote, p. 9] from Letter II to Miss Harriet Reid of Glasgow, April 28 1773. eg. p.25 'Though my sorrows should be multiplied, as very likely they may, I shall have consolations peculiarly my own, that, like Milton?s sweet music, ?will breathe above, about, and underneath?. How literal this truth is ?. A little dress, a little Odyssey, a little breakfast, and then ? I shall behold the faces of my kindred' from Letter III To Miss Reid.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Edward Young : Night thoughts
Reader makes several references to the work: V.1, p.9, p.19, p.167, p.192; V.2 p.145, p.162, p.177; V.3 p.145. eg.: V.1 p.9 'Well, now I was very sure I would not smile this summer, nor yet read any book but the Bible and Night Thoughts*; even the Odyssey was to be rejected'. *'The Night Thoughts, and the Odyssey, were favourite studies among these friends, to which they were wont to make many serious and playful allusions' [footnote, p. 9] from Letter II to Miss Harriet Reid of Glasgow, April 28 1773. eg. p.19 '"how populous, how vital is the grave;? says your favourite Young : ?how populous, how vital are the glens!? I should be tempted to say here' from same letter.
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
: Bible
Anne Grant to Miss Harriet Reid, April 28 1773: 'Well, now I was very sure I would not smile this summer, nor yet read any book but the Bible and Night Thoughts*; even the Odyssey was to be rejected'. *The Night Thoughts, and the Odyssey, were favourite studies among these friends, to which they were wont to make many serious and playful allusions? [footnote, p. 9].
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Shakespeare : various
Quotes Shakespeare throughout work:V.1 p.55,p.62,p.86, p.105,p.126; V.2 p.55,p.89,p.199; V.3 p.176 eg. V.1. p.105 Letter XIII to Miss Reid, Fort William May 24 1773 '?He was like Brutus among conspirators, whom you used to admire in the play: "The rest did what they did in envy of the great Caesar/ He only, in general honest thought," ?'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
John Milton : [Works]
Quotes Milton throughout work:V.1 pp 25,75,90,101,169,190; V.2 pp118,206; V.3 p.87. Ex. Letter XI To Miss Reid, Glasgow, Fort William, May 17 1773 V.1 p.90 'If Fort Augustus be such a place, I will certainly become a votary of the ?Pensive nun, devout and pure,/ Sober, stedfast [sic], and demure? whom we used to admire so much. Expect to see me when we meet ?With sable stole of cypress lawn/ O?er my decent shoulders drawn."'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Laurence Sterne : Sentimental Journey
Letter II to Miss Harriet Reid of Glasgow, April 28 1773 '?he shewed so much ingenuity in discovering faults in every thing, that I burst out a laughing, and said we were certainly haunted by the ghost of Smelfungus, of whom Sterne give [sic] such an amusing account. By the bye, we had just that morning passed, ?with reverence due?, the monument of the original Smelfungus, which rises near his native spot, beside his favourite lake, which he delights to describe in Humphrey Clinker.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Laurence Sterne : [Letters from Yorick to Eliza?]
Letter XLIII To Miss Dunbar, Boath/ Laggan April 11, 1803, 'Surely you have seen Sterne?s Letters to Eliza; if not, do without delay read them. It is her monument I am describing ?. '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
James Thomson : The seasons
Reader makes 4 references to the work V.1 pp 61,64; V.2 pp 4, 251. Eg. p. 61 'The sun shone on our social repast, but when we set out, Eolus did not perform the task Thomson assigns him in the opening of spring'; p.64 'I am reformed, and amended, but cannot fatigue myself or you with the description of this day; you will find it in Thomson ?Deceitful, vain, and void, passes the day.?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Tobias Smollett : The expedition of Humphrey Clinker
Letter to Miss Ewing, November 14, 1778 '? the former [ie Highlanders] indeed are a people never to be known unless you live among them, and learn their language. Smollet, in Humphrey Clinker, is the only writer that has given a genuine sketch of Scotch manners ?.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Tobias Smollett : Roderick Random
Letter to Miss Reid May 17,1773 'As far as a mountain can resemble a man, it resembles the person Smollet has marked out by the name of Captain Gawky.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Thomas Gray : [Poems]
Reader makes 4 references to Gray's works V.1 p.73 (Ode to adversity), p. 91 (The progress of poesy); v.2 p.55 (The fatal sisters),; v.3 p. 59 (On a distant prospect of Eton college). Eg. p.73 'I always delight in Gray?s Ode to Adversity; read it once again and compare its ennobling tenors with my ideas.'; p. 91 'I feel the spark of fancy kindling at the torch of memory; but as Gray says of Jove?s eagle, "the thunder of whose beak, and lightening of whose eye were to be quenched? &c &c I too will quench my mental light in ?dark clouds of slumber"'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
James Thomson : The Seasons
Letter to Mrs Macintosh September 9 1797 'The cheerfulness of our work-people, and the soft serenity of the air, during these tepid gleams that Thomson speaks of so feelingly, have almost made us this autumn ?Taste the rural life in all its joy,? and elegance'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee Macvicar] Print: Book
William Shenstone : [An ode to the late Duchess of Somerset]
Letter to Miss Reid May 24 1773 'O! how I wished for some one to share a luxury that wealth cannot purchase, and that thousands are not born to taste! "O! blind to truth, to virtue blind,/ Who slight the sweetly pensive mind,/ On whose birth the graces mild,/ Ands every Muse prophetic smil?d." ... ?There are the spirits born to know and prove,/ All nature?s charms immense, and heavens unbounded love."' [ie two separate quotations from the same verse]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Shenstone : [Elegy 15]
Letter to Miss Ourry June 4 1791 'Her sister, in whose arms she died, was immediately seized with the same disorder, and met her death with the same well-grounded heroism. "Surely to blissful realms those souls are flown That never flatter?d, censur?d, envied, strove" My dear, you will excuse this digressive tribute to departed excellence. What havoc has been lately made in the little circle of those I loved!'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Walter Scott : [Elegy 1]
Letter to Miss Ourry June 4 1791 'My dear, you will excuse this digressive tribute to departed excellence. What havoc has been lately made in the little circle of those I loved!' "Yes, even here, amidst these secret shades/The simple scenes of unreproved delight/Affliction?s iron hand my breast invades/And death?s dread dart is ever in my sight?"'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Oliver Goldsmith : [The traveller]
Letter to Miss Ewing June 10 1774 'Yet I should like none of these climates, where ?Winter lingering chills the lap of May? if I could help it.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
unknown : [Biographies including ones of Peter the Great and of Oliver Cromwell]
Letter to Collector MacVicar, May 28 1773 'Since I wrote to you last, I have been most intent on biography, and quite engrossed by heroes and legislatures' [and later in same letter] 'You bid me read biography, to teach me to think; I have thought and here is the result [ie re Peter the Great]. If I have not made you very angry, I will next give my thought of this rival hero.'[and in the following two letters to same recipient May 30 and June 20 1773] 'The poor dear Odyssey is quite neglected; I have forsaken it for biography; I can speak of nobody less than a king or a general, and shall take the first opportunity of introducing you to prince Mazeppa. Tweed and Clyde are not worth a farthing now, I can think of nothing but Dneiper and the Boristhenes. I have some toleration too for the Wolga [sic]. "Oh voman [sic], voman!" as Win Jenkins says, " If you knew but the plesur [sic] we scullers have when we censter the crabbit werds." ?'; [and] ... 'To quit the flowery paths of ingenious fiction [ie the Vicar of Wakefield] for the thorny maze in which I am slowly advancing, [ie a biography of Cromwell] is no pleasing transition to female fancy?.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Samuel Butler : Hudibras
Letter to Collector MacVicar, May 30 1773 'I will no longer bewilder myself among figures, for I see you ready to compare me to Hudibras, "Who could not ope/ His mouth but out there flew a trope"?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Oliver Goldsmith : The vicar of Wakefield
Letter to Collector MacVicar, June 20 1773 'In the mean time I hope the best, and endeavour to pursue Oliver Cromwell through all his crooked paths. I have gone but a short way, my attention having been completely engrossed by a book that has bewitched me for the time; ?tis the Vicar of Wakefield, which you must certainly read. Goldsmith puts one in mind of Shakespear [sic]; his narrative is improbable and absurd in many instances, yet all his characters do and say exactly what might be supposed of them ?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Harvey : unknown
Letter to Miss Ewing, May 1777, 'You will think me very fanciful, investing plants with sentiment, but you may trust me when I assure you, I don?t borrow from Harvey. The reverence I have for his character and intentions has made me often try to like his flowery style, but I never could succeed.' Letter to Miss Ewing May 1777
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Collins : Ode occasion'd by the death of Mr Thomson
Letter to Miss Ewing, May 1777, ' ? this other princely seat of the Athol family forms, at this moment, opposite my window ?But now the fairy vallies fade/Dun night has veil?d the solemn view;/Yet once again, dear parted maid/Meek Nature?s child, again adieu.' Letter to Miss Ewing May 1777
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Alexander Pope : The Dunciad
Letter to Miss Ewing, August 10 1778 'When I am a czarina of some new discovered region, one of my first edicts shall be, that every one of my subjects, who is incapable of being amused in a rational and elegant manner, shall work hard from morning to night. And in this regulation I will consult the happiness of my said subjects ?Nor let their everlasting yawn express/The pain and penalties of idleness?'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
James Beattie : The minstrel; or , the progress of genius
Letter to MIss Ewing August 10 1778 '? I resume my wonted pleasure of contemplating the calm bosom of my own lake, the purest of mirrors, exhibiting a prospect awfully solemn and wildly magnificent; while the mountain tops seem sleeping on its surface. ?In truth, I am a strange and wayward wight/ Fond of each dreadful, and each gentle scene"' .
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Marcus Tullius Cicero : Fortieth oration
Letter to MIss Ewing September 21, 1778 'Were I not afraid of the imputation of pedantic affectation, I could make this clear by a learned quotation from M.T. Cicero?s fortieth oration.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Samuel Richardson : Clarissa
Letter to MIss Ewing October 3, 1778 'I am glad you were so well entertained at the Fairley by my old acquaintance Clarissa, and your new acquaintance Mr. Monteith. I observe you frequently preferred the company of the former to the latter, and am pleased to find you so partial to my favourite heroine. Never, sure, were characters so well drawn, discriminated and supported as those in ?Clarissa?. ...' [comment continues]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
[Edward?] [Young?] : [Satire VI?]
Letter to Miss Ewing October 3 1778 'He is an uncommon, indeed I may say, an exalted character; one of those of whom Pope says ?Great souls there are, who touch?d with warmth divine/ Give gold a price, and teach its beams to shine"
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Alexander Pope : Essay on man
Letter to Miss Ewing October 3 1778 'Modern history indeed refutes my wise conclusions, by presenting us with an almost similar character [ie to one in fiction], Lord Bolingbroke, whom Pope distinguishes by the epithet of all-accomplished St. John. He addressed his Essay on Man to him, and speaks of him on all occasions with the most enthusiastic admiration. Swift does almost the same; and Chesterfield, who only saw him in extreme old age, when he might be thought to have outlived his talents and his graces, was yet dazzled with his person and address ?. ?. Thus, without heart, without truth or morals, this man [ie Lord Bolingbroke] was enabled to captivate and do mischief, not only all his life, but even after death. The deistical writings he left behind were not the result of self-conviction, or a desire to convince others, but the mere vanity of exploring the trackless wastes of speculation, of overthrowing established opinions, and thus creating a region in which to rule. It was like Satan?s expedition in search of some domain, where he might exercise power and produce misery'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
James Beattie : Poems
Letter to Miss Ewing November 14 1778 'I have cut all the leaves out of a great old goose of a book, and there I have placed those pretty pictures in regular succession; with Miss Ourry?s, and Mrs Sprot?s; cousin Jean?s letters, which I value much for the vein of original humour that runs through them, are there too: so are some of Beattie?s poems. You can?t think how diligently I peruse this good book. Watts on the Passions is not dearer to you; for, warm as he is in your workbag, do you think your paper bag of epistles can ever lift its head in competition to my great book?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Jean Jacques Rousseau : Eliosa
Letter to Miss Ewing April 18, 1779 'I do not know whether you will view this in the same light, but I think it is the most affecting and heroic instance of true friendship I have met with in real life. One can?t help comparing it with the lively and impressive portrait Rousseau draws of Clara and Eloisa.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
[Edward?] [Young?] : [?Night Thoughts]
Letter to Miss Ourry July 13, 1779 'The sublime and solid consolations which true religion and right reason afford, are all your own and, tho? well assured that there is indeed ?No pang like that of bosom torn/ From bosom, bleeding o?er the sacred dead? yet I trust those truths ?.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Collins : Address to simplicity
Letter to Mrs Smith August 7 1784 'You and he too have this in common, that you both appear to most advantage on paper, where your diffidence does not stand in your way. He admires my application of Collin?s Address to Simplicity to you and says you really are, ?By nature taught/To breathe her genuine thought/ In language warmly lure and sweetly strong"'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Rochefoucault : [Maxims and moral reflections?]
Letter to Mrs Smith August 19 1785 'So much for this subject. Rochefoucault says, very ill-naturedly, that people always find consolation very easily for the misfortunes of their friends. Painful experience assures me of the contrary.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : The Sorrows of Young Werter
Letter to Mrs Brown March 9 1789 'As low as you rate your critical abilities, they have altogether captivated and dazzled my good man. He desires me to keep the letter for my girls, to moderate the poignant affliction they will feel, some time hence, in weeping over Werter. He considers this pathetic hero as a weak though amiable enthusiast, and looks upon Charlotte as first cousin to a coquette. Albert is his hero. ?.' [continues to refer to Werter for several pages]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
John Gregory : A comparative view of the state and faculties of man with those of the animal world
Letter to Mrs Smith May 26 1789 'Pray read Dr Gregory?s Comparative View, &c. and observe particularly the last section on the influence of religion; that on taste; and the strictures of taste on refinement. I long to have you share the entertainment they afforded to my happier hours.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Tobias Smollett : unknown
Letter to Miss Ourry March 27 1791 'I am very fond of the lower class of people; they have sentiment, serious habits, and a kind of natural courtesy; in short, they are not mob, an animal which Smollet most emphatically says he detests in its head, midriff, and members; and, in this point, I do not greatly differ with him. You would wonder how many of the genteeler class live here. They are not rich to be sure; so much the better for us; For "Where no contiguous palace rears its head/To shame the meanness of the humble shed" people do very well, and keep each other in countenance."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Oliver Goldsmith : The traveller
Letter to Miss Ourry March 27 1791 'I am very fond of the lower class of people; they have sentiment, serious habits, and a kind of natural courtesy; in short, they are not mob, an animal which Smollet most emphatically says he detests in its head, midriff, and members; and, in this point, I do not greatly differ with him. You would wonder how many of the genteeler class live here. They are not rich to be sure; so much the better for us; For "Where no contiguous palace rears its head/To shame the meanness of the humble shed" people do very well, and keep each other in countenance."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Robert Burns : To ruin
Letter to Mrs Ourry September 8 1791 'The twin sister of my Petrina has been very unwell. I regarded her danger with composure that excited my own wonder. Perhaps like Burns, "With firm, resolv?d, despairing eye/ I view each aimed dart/ Since one has cut my dearest tie/ And quivers in my heart."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Alexander Pope : Essay on man
Letter to Miss Ourry October 30 1791 'This, no doubt, forms no pleasant chain of dependences, but in this, as in many other instances ?What happier nature shrinks at with affright,/ The hard inhabitants contend is right.? '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Mary Wollstonecroft : unknown
Letter to Miss Ourry January 2 1794 'Then I have not put B. to school, or done half of what I meant.- I have seen Mary Wollstonecroft?s book, which is so run after here, that there is no keeping it long enough to read it leisurely, though one had leisure. It has produced no other convictions in my mind, but that of the authors possessing considerable abilities, and greatly misapplying them. To refute her arguments would be to write another and a larger book; for there is more pains and skill required to refute ill-founded assertions, than to make them. [and again on p. 272] 'Where a woman had those superior powers of mind to which we give the name genius, she will exert them under all disadvantages: Jean Jacques says truly, genius will educate itself, and, like flame, burst through all obstructions ?.' [p. 268-277 is a criticism of Mary Wollstonecroft's work]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Jean Jacques Rousseau : [?Emile]
Letter to Miss Ourry January 2 1794 'Then I have not put B. to school , or done half of what I meant.- I have seen Mary Wollstonecroft?s book, which is so run after here, that there is no keeping it long enough to read it leisurely, though one had leisure. It has produced no other convictions in my mind, but that of the authors possessing considerable abilities, and greatly misapplying them. To refute her arguments would be to write another and a larger book; for there is more pains and skill required to refute ill-founded assertions, than to make them. [and again on p. 272] 'Where a woman had those superior powers of mind to which we give the name genius, she will exert them under all disadvantages: Jean Jacques says truly, genius will educate itself, and, like flame, burst through all obstructions ?. [p. 268-277 is a criticism of Mary Wollstonecroft's work ]'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Helen Maria Williams : unknown
Letter to Mrs F--R (formerly Miss Ourry) April 11 1795 ??Innovation disconcerts us; new lights blind us; we detest the Rights of Man, and abominate those of Woman. Think then how I am prepared to receive your friend H.M.W.?s* new publication; though I admire her style, and confess that nobody embellishes absurdity more ingeniously. I am greatly inclined too to respect the purity of religious principles. Yet when I think of the associates with whom her political bigotry has connected her, I think I hear the Syrian leper entreating the prophet?s permission to bow a little occasionally in the house of their god Rimmon. [footnote] *Helen Maria Williams before she forsook her country and her principles'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
John Dryden : [Tales from Chaucer]
Letter to Mrs Macintosh June 19 1796 'At length I set up my rest under a broad spreading cedar, beside the statue of Diana which seemed to protect me. I thought of Dryden?s description: "The graceful goddess was array?d in green,/ About her feet were little beagles seen,/ That watch?d with upward eyes the motions of their queen."'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone : [Sketches?]
Letter to Mrs Macintosh October 3 1796 'Have you read Lord Gardenstone?s Sketches, or detailed observations, I believe they are? It is very much the kind of reading that you like. I never met with one who thought exactly as I do of Shakspear, of David Hume, and of Queen Mary, but he. In politics we should never agree, I am &c., &c.? '
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Jonathan Swift : unknown
Letter to Mrs F--R , April 7 1797 'They are very happy too in their eldest son, who promises to be all that they prayed for; but he is rather delicate in his constitution. The circle is never complete. I think Swift and Co. or some of those old friends of ours, remark, that they have seldom met with superior powers on understanding joined to amiable qualities in a woman, but that there was a balance of bad health to be set on the opposite side of the account?'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
James Macpherson : The poems of Ossian
Letter to Mrs Macintosh November 23 1800 'Nay, I find the relapse to calm sorrow, a relief from constant perturbation, ?Tha solas an thireadh le sith, Ach claoidhidh fad thuirs soil doruin,?*. As I cannot cure the evil habit of quotation, you see I have changed ground, and taken shelter in another language ? This whimsical parody is not unmeaning, for the original is stronger, and softer than the sense can be given in our language? [footnote]*This quotation from Ossian has been elegantly, and not unfaithfully, translated by James Macpherson. It runs literally thus??There is enjoyment in mourning with peace; yet long mourning wastes the children of calamity?'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Robert Burns : [Poems]
Letter to Miss Dunbar April 25 1802 '?Now I have to satisfy you as to my favourite poem of Burns. Doubtless the Daisy is the most finished, and excels in simple elegance. ?The De?il himsel? in humour, exquisite, peculiar humour. I confess, if decorous people could be reconciled to blackguardism, John Hornbook is the very emperor of blackguards ?.' [ continues comments on Burns]
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Peter Pindar : [Poems]
Letter to Miss Dunbar May 4 1802 'I cannot tell you how much I admire and despise Peter*. He is every way original, and most original in this respect, that I know not that ever any other object at once excited my contempt and admiration. His humour is most peculiar, most unaffected, most irresistible. Yet, for what end Providence entrusted a weapon so dangerous in the hands of one who avows his disregard to everything sacred and venerable, is very difficult for us to conjecture ?[continues comments] [footnote]*Peter Pindar, a witty, but low, and mischievous writer of verses.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Alexander Pope : Eloisa to Abelard
Letter to Miss Dunbar October 1802 'I don?t know whether I remarked to you before, that I never knew a creature who enjoys, in a higher degree that "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" which Pope gives to his vestals.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Laurence Sterne : [Letters from Yorick to Eliza?]
Letter to Miss Dunbar April 11 1803 'Surely you have seen Sterne?s Letters to Eliza; if not, do without delay read them. It is her monument I am describing ?. '
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Hayley : [Life and letters of William Cowper]
Letter to Miss Dunbar May 1802 [see note] 'I will give you my opinion, such as it will be after a hasty perusal, of the poem you had the goodness to send me; but you in return must give me yours of Dr. Cowper?s Malachi. I did not tell you how very ill I have been of the Cowper mania. I do not mean the doctor, but the delightful author of The Task. Read his letters by Hayley, and his life, as I did, and you will find them "Of power to take the captive soul/ And lap it in Elysium."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Cowper : The task
Letter to Miss Dunbar May 1802 [see note] 'I will give you my opinion, such as it will be after a hasty perusal, of the poem you had the goodness to send me; but you in return must give me yours of Dr. Cowper?s Malachi. I did not tell you how very ill I have been of the Cowper mania. I do not mean the doctor, but the delightful author of The task. Read his letters by Hayley, and his life, as I did, and you will find them "Of power to take the captive soul/ And lap it in Elysium."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Thomas Campbell : Pleasures of hope
Letter to Miss Dunbar May 1802 [see note] 'Did I tell you I read "Campbell?s Pleasures of Hope" at Wells and was charmed and elevated beyond measure ?'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
Elizabeth Rose of Kilravock : unknown
Letter to Miss Dunbar May 17 1803 'You must have felt some of the pains and penalties of authorship, to have any ideas of the cordial satisfaction I derived from reading Mrs Rose?s* elegant criticism. I insist upon it, that it betrays hardihood, insolence, and indeed some hypocrisy, to affect indifference about public opinion, when one has left the safe and peaceful shades of privacy' [footnote]*Mrs Rose of Kilravock, whose taste and talents are universally known and respected in her own country.
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar]
Jonathan Swift : Gulliver's Travels
Letter to Mrs F--R July 1803 'Think of the dignity and interest attached to a character, that can relish the pure pleasures of taste and beneficence, at a period of life when a parcel of wretched Struldbruggs* become contemptible and wearisome to all about them ? [footnote] *See Swift?s description of them in Gulliver?s Travels to the Island of Laputa.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
William Hayley : Life and letters of William Cowper
Letter to Mrs F--R July 1803 'Have you read Hayley?s life of that dear amiable saint, Cowper? I have no patience with Hayley for expiating so minutely on Cowper?s praise whose life and works praise him beyond all that he can say...' [continues for a further page]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
["Parisian philosophers"] : unknown
Letter to Mrs Ourry September 1791 'Clanship, doubtless, narrows the affections, and produces many absurd and unpleasing associations; yet it is better to love forty or fifty people warmly and exclusively on absurd grounds, than to love nobody at all; and then pretend to love all the world (which does not care a straw for you, as the Parisian philosophers do, on whom the demons of scepticism and discord will soon visit all the mischiefs they are doing, and far greater mischiefs they occasion). My poor dear Odyssey tells a fine story of Aeolus having the winds in a bag, and what havoc followed when they were unskilfully let out. Now, I think popular writers possess bags, in which those winds are contained that blow the embers of discontent into flames of destruction ?.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
John Milton : Paradise lost
Letter to Collector MacVicar June 30 1773 'I will not tire you with the detail of all the little circumstances that gradually acquired me the place in her favour which I ever continued to possess. She [ie Aunt Schuyler] saw me reading Paradise Lost with delighted attention; she was astonished to see a child take pleasure in such a book.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Book
: [Newspapers]
Letter to Miss Ourry March 10 1775 'I had indeed heard that the 15th were under orders for America, but did not dream of Captain Ourry?s accompanying them; and I examined every newspaper in hopes of finding his name changed, or sold out.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee MacVicar] Print: Newspaper
Thomas Gray : Elegy written in a country churchyard
Letter to Mrs F----R. May 9 1800?? I declare, had I my pilgrimage to begin anew through the wilderness, I would not give my share of the endearing charities of life, my bustles and struggles to procure ease and comfort to those I love, my faithful friendships, and, ?My humble toils and destiny obscure? for all that wealth and fashion can bestow.? [slight misquotation of Gray's "Elegy written in a country churchyard"]
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee Macvicar] Print: Book
David Hume : Essay concerning human understanding
Letter to Miss Ourry Oct 14 1791 'This temporary triumph of irreligion and false philosophy will tear the mark off the monster ?What pains have been taken to promulgate that profound discovery, ?that bigotry and religious zeal have done more hurt in society, than scepticism and all the mere speculative, evils of philosophy?.? [it seems likely that this is a paraphrase of Hume's philosophical "Essay concerning human understanding"]
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anne Grant [nee Macvicar] Print: Book
: [volume of religious meditations]
'Of the excellence of the devotions in the little volume you were so good as to send me, there cannot be two opinions, drawn, as they are in substance, from the pure wells of inspiration - those sacred scriptures in which we have eternal life. Those graces of style which a person of literary acquirements and refined taste can always command, are not essentially necessary to edification; yet we read it as a recommendation of apples of gold, that they are set in pictures of silver, and a certain degree of embellishment was considered appropriate for the sanctuary. Your friend has, however, judiciously avoided all studied or meretricious ornament, and suited her language to the weight and solemnity of the subject'.
