Evidence: | '[Rev Charles Burney's] Abridgement of Pearson's Exposition of the Creed, is printed, though not yet published. He gave to my father & me each a Copy. His Motto, I think a most happy one, taken from some work of the great Bentley's - "The most excellent Bishop Pearson - the very dust of whose writings is gold". - I have read above half the volume; it is all fudge to call it a book for the use of [underlined] young persons [end underlining] - Unless they are such Young Persons as Moll, who reads Lock on Human Understanding in two days, & says it is easy, & fancies she understands it - And the same farce she played regarding Butler's Analogy, the toughest book (allowed by learned men) in the English language, which she spoke of with the familiar partiality I would speak of Tom Hickerthrift, & bamboozled me into trying to read - and, Good Lord! when I had pored over a dozen pages & shook my ears, and asked myself - "Well, Sal, how dost like it? Dost understand one word?" "O, yes; all the [underlined] words [end underlining], but not one of their meanings when put together." "Why, then, Sal; put the book away; and say nothing about it; but say thy prayers in peace, & leave the reasons [underlined] why [end underlining] thou art impelled to say them, and all the [underlined] fatras [end underlining] of analyzation, to those who have more logical brains, or more leisure to read what they do not comprehend". But, however, a great part of Dr Charles's abridgement, I flatter myself I [underlined] do [end underlining] understand; and what is too deep for me, Moll may explain. He has retained a heap of hard words, which send me to Dr Johnson's dictionary continually - Some of them, are expressive, & worth reviving, others, we have happier substitutes for, and it was ungraceful to admit them, and shewed a false and pedantic taste'. |
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Century: | 1800-1849 | ||||||||||
Date: | Until: 29 Dec 1809 | ||||||||||
Country: | England | ||||||||||
Time: | n/a | ||||||||||
Place: | city: London specific address: Chelsea College |
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Type of Experience (Reader): |
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Type of Experience (Listener): |
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Reader: | Sarah Harriet Burney |
Age | Adult (18-100+) |
Gender | Female |
Date of Birth | 29 Aug 1772 |
Socio-economic group: | Professional / academic / merchant / farmer |
Occupation: | writer |
Religion: | n/a |
Country of origin: | England |
Country of experience: | England |
Listeners present if any: (e.g. family, servants,
friends, workmates) |
n/a |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Author: | Joseph Butler |
Title: | Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the constitution and course of Nature |
Genre: | Other religious |
Form of Text: | Print: Book |
Publication details: | n/a |
Provenance: | borrowed (other) possibly lent by Marianne Francis (Moll) |
Record ID: | 17579 | |
Source - | ||
Author: | Sarah Harriet Burney | |
Editor: | Lorna J. Clark | |
Title: | Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, the | |
Place of Publication: | Athens GA / London | |
Date of Publication: | 1997 | |
Vol: | n/a | |
Page: | 108 | |
Additional comments: | n/a |
Citation: | Sarah Harriet Burney, Lorna J. Clark (ed.), Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, the (Athens GA / London, 1997), p. 108, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=17579, accessed: 03 December 2023 |
letter to Charlotte Barrett, 29th December 1809. |
Reading Experience Database version 2.0. Page updated: 27th Apr 2016 3:15pm (GMT)