A DIARY OF 1795.*

THE editor of this Diary tells us that some of the earlier portions of it appeared in the Scottish Antiquary in January and April of last year. We are very glad that he has now given the bulk of it to the public. It makes the kind of book that we would like to follow as it travels in Mudie's suburban carts and country subscribers' boxes. It will find many readers, and probably even many buyers, though it is not likely to hit the caprice of that wonderful little London world that sets the fashion in books as well as in clothes, and by its great assumption of being the only world, makes it so difficult for publishers to believe that there is good taste and common-sense among the millions who live out of society. It is a book that derives its charm largely from the fact that it was not originally meant to be a book—only a series a terse, intelligent notes jotted down in shorthand by a homely Scotch minister travelling on horseback from Peebles to London and back again between June 22nd and Sep- tember 6th in the year 1795. Of the doings of the great world, and the sayings of the wise and the witty, which make he material of so many famous diaries, it tells us nothing. It is merely a record of what one simple and undistinguished person observed, enjoyed, and admired in the course of a summer tour, with here and there a very slight allusion to the political events of the time, or a paragraph of reflections upon the moral aspects of a scene. But its simplicity and freedom from self-consciousness make it after the lapse of a hundred years a curiously engaging and acceptable little volume to all who care to have a moment of the past made vivid to them by an accumulation of matter-of-fact details.

The introduction gives us a little information about the writer. His name was MacRitchie, and he was the son of a tenant-farmer in the parish of Clunie, in Perthshire, where he was born in 1754. He got his education at the Universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, and some of his notebooks testify to his having also attended Professor William Hamilton's anatomy class at Glasgow in the session of 1782.83. In the same year he was licensed by the Presbytery, and in the year following appointed minister of his native parish of Olunie. He was a man of scientific accomplishment, with a special devotion to botany and geology. He also wrote verses, but the only example of them given in this book—a poem in praise of his good horse Cally '—does more credit to his heart than to his muse.

The first entry in the Diary records arrival at Perth and an interview with Captain Lindsay, of the Royal Navy,

• Diary of a Tow through Great Britain in 1796. By the Rev. William MacRitchie, Minister of the Parish of Clunie. Perthshire. With an Introduction and Notes by David MacRitebie. London ; Elliot Stock. "sent hither on his Majesty's recruiting service," who laments that he can get no seamen in Perth, though he makes them "the tempting offer of twenty-five guineas a man and upwards," and has much to say in condemnation of the hard times. Two days later a shepherd reading a news- paper on the slopes of the Pentland Hills provokes an out- burst of conservative indignation :— "`Curse on French politics ! ' said I, 'for they will ruin our country. This fellow would be better employed gathering plants as I am, and at the same time taking care of his sheep. What connection has French cruelty with the happiness of this poor fellow's situation ? If he has not the felicity at this moment to congratulate himself on his having been born a Scots herd, I both pity and despise him. But what business has he with that news- paper ? I don't like to be uncharitable, but I cannot help think- ing he puts me too much in mind of too many fine giddy girls. who set their heads agog by reading romances that ought to be made a bonfire of. I like liberty as much as any roan; the liberty of the press is certainly a great blessing ; but alas ! the very best of blessings are too often abused.' " This little outburst—a very unusual departure from the matter-of-fact tone of the Diary as a whole—makes us realise what a bugbear France was at the time. Perhaps the shepherd had got hold of a paper with the story of the death of the Dauphin in the Bastile, which had occurred a fortnight before ; or possibly it was a year-old paper full of the horrors of the guillotine. Arrived at Linton the traveller's thoughts were occupied with feeding Cally ' on " good Polish oats," which he describes as " firm, meaty pickle," costing only "fourpence the lippy," while hay is a shilling a stone. He arrives at Kendal on Saturday, June 27th, and gets up next morning " by the sound of the trumpet and join the 30th Regiment of Dragoons (Ulster Light Dragoons) on their route to Birmingham, ordered up there for the purpose of quelling the riots." The Annual Register describes riots in Birming- ham on the 23rd, when- " A mob of 1,000 people assembled before the mill of Mr. Pichard of Snow Hill in this town on account of the dearness of provisions, crying out= A large loaf ; are we to be starved to• death ? ' and presently demolished the windows, window shutters, and doors to the front of the bakehouse, which some of them entered."

But next day peace was restored to the town and neigh- bourhood. So the 30th Dragoons, leaving Kendal on the 28th, must have arrived the day after the fair. But the sequel is not told by Mr. MacRitchie, who was very far from thinking of making a diary that should serve as a history of the year. He only mentions that he marched with the regi- ment as far as Penrith, at which place " Prince William of Gloucester arrives on his way to Keswick," and the writer has "for the first time the honour of seeing one of the Royal family."

In 1795 the "Waverley Novels" were unwritten, and Turner's pictures were not yet painted. The sense of mystery in land- scape, the spirit of historical romance in cantle and forest, had not found expression in art and fiction ; nor had the Oxford Movement given a popular impulse to the study of ecclesiastical arcbmology. People praised scenery in conven- tional language that reads coldly in our day of sentimental impressions and picturesque styles. But our dry Scotchman was not insensible to the beauties of mountain or river, castle, cathedral, or stately country seat; and sometimes he succeeds, without any effort at the picturesque, in writing a description that makes a very good picture :—

" The approach to Carlisle from the north-west is most pleasant of any. The river Eden divides into two branches. immediately to the north of the town ; the branch next the town passes under a bridge of seven, and the branch farthest off passes under a bridge of four arches ; the twn branches upon their union make a long magnificent winding, which embraces an . extensive plain. On the south-east side of this peninsula stands the Castle, under a considerable elevation. To the left of the Castle you see the Cathedral, with its noble square tower. To the left of the Cathedral you see the town, the bridges, and the river winding under your feet; in the middle-ground a finely- cultivated country along the banks of the river ; and in the back- ground the Cumbrian mountains elevating their lofty tops to the sky."

A diligent as well as an enthusiastic botanist, he notes carefully the flora of every place he passes through, but. un- fortunately for the general reader, he gives only the Latin names of plants, so that the lists of wild flowers, which are a recurring feature of the Diary, add little to the picturesqueness of its pages.

He arrives in London on July 21st, and walking nest day along the river to Westminster Bridge, happens "to witness a grand anniversary sailing match on the river. The prize, a silver bowl, run for by six barges with four men in each ; the distance from Blackfriars Bridge to Putney Bridge, about eight miles up the river, and back again to opposite Vauxhall." He falls in with a friend and, with him, stands on Vauxhall Bridge to witness the coming back of the boats with the returning tide, "preceded by a very unusual and extraordinary spectacle," which he describes in detail :-

" A most magnificent barge, constructed somewhat in the form of Neptune's triumphal car, as described by Virgil and the old Roman and Grecian poets. This elegant, expensive, fanciful machine, it seems, was first designed in honour of Lord Howe's Victory over the French fleet ; and it has lately been altered a little in honour of the Prince of 'Wales' marriage. It was accompanied by a thousand other barges with ladies and gentlemen; and as it dropt slow down the river, its wheels seemed to move upon the surface of the water, and it appeared to be drawn along by two large sea-monsters having the necks and manes and heads of horses that proudly arched their necks, and moved their heads, and bit their reins as they moved along the deep. In the Car aloft the torch of Hymen burned, while Cupids fanned the flame. In the meantime the musical band of the Duke of York, that is, the Band of the Horse Guards, being stationed on board this wonderful machine, per- formed the most sublime pieces of music in the most masterly manner ; the notes coming softened along the water, produced on all sides the most admirable effects. Soon after this watery procession had stopped past the Park Bridge, the sailing-racers came down the river with vast rapidity, accompanied also by a thousand barges covering the whole surface of the Thames. While the gaining vessel approached to the goal, the guns were fired on each side ; and the whole vessels in the evening sailed down towards Westminster Bridge, while the crowds on each side of the river withdrew by slow degrees to the City. Even in the most luxurious times of ancient Rome, never sure could old Father Tiber boast a nobler spectacle."

An evening visit to Vauxhall Gardens makes the text of one of the few pages of moralising that occur in this Diary,—as to which an editorial note remarks that though they "contain nothing very striking in themselves, they help to complete this picture of a night at Vauxhall Gardens, towards the close of the eighteenth century." They also help to define the character of the writer. Covent Garden Market in the early morning was a more congenial scene to him :-

" Get up at five a.m., and go with Mr. Brodie to see the Green- market at Covent Garden. This an unusual and very astonishing scene ; perhaps the first green-market of any in the world ; and three times crowded every week, Saturday being the principal day. There are several other green-markets in London ; but this by far the greatest. It is impossible to form any idea of the vast profusion of roots, and herbs, and flowers, and fruits, of all sorts and of the very best qualities, all in perfect maturity, packed up in the most cleanly, secure, and ingenious manner, in hampers, and barrows, and baskets, and carts, and waggons, &C. ; and here and there green-houses, with varieties of green-house plants for sale ; with thousands rushing in from every quarter, and women (principally Welsh and Irish) walking with immense loads of fruits, &c., on their heads from the distance of perhaps six or eight miles or more from Kent, and Surrey, and Middlesex, and Essex, .&c. Nothing to be seen here for many hours of the morning, but bustle and hurry, cooks and cook-maids, scullions and kitchen- boys, men-servants and maid-servants, and people of every denomination and description, carrying off from this great market vegetable luxuries of every kind, to satisfy the luxurious appetites of this immense Metropolis ; so that almost before noonday every- thing is disposed of, and the bustle ceases."

He goes to Kew on a Sunday and finds the Botanic Gardens closed, but he walks in the pleasure-grounds and sees the Royal menagerie, and is much entertained by " a prodigy of Nature, the kangaroo from Botany Bay," whose appearance and habits he describes minutely. Next day he gets admission to the Gardens, and introduces himself to Mr. Aiton, who shows him the " first collection of plants I ever saw, both indigenous and exotic," and favours him with specimens of some rare plants.

He finds the tombs at Westminster Abbey " well calculated to impress the mind with seriousness and awe." But at St. Paul's he is as irritatingly mathematical and matter of fact as Robert Henley in Old Kensington :- " Walk round St. Paul's Church, and take a general view of that stately monument. Though by all accounts the second in Europe, it wants uniformity in its external appearance, not being equally balanced on each side of the cupola."

On August 10th he leaves London, and records the fact and the reflections it gives rise to in a series of short, pithy notes, which we feel sure must have served eventually as the heads of a sermon :--

". Leave London. Look bark with an indescribable mixture of tee" ngs on this vast Metropolis, well termed a world of wonders

in itself.' Think on all I have seen, and suffered, and enjoyed, in the City and its environs. Ruminate on its magnificence ; its extent ; its populousness ; its riches ; its poverty ; its dissipa- tions ; its luxuries ; its vanities ; its vices ; its virtues. Roll on through a beautiful country ; and lose sight of the smoke of London. Breakfast at Hoddeston [Hoddesdon]. Hay harvest not done here yet, on account of the rains. Some fields of rye cut down. Some fields of wheat almost ready. Hear of some fields of wheat cut down in several places in the neighbourhood. Great outcry among the people for want of bread. God send peace and a plentiful crop, and a good harvest ! "

On his way home he visits Cambridge, York, and Durham, and many places besides, making his notes in the same vein of fresh and intelligent observation. And when he comes in sight of Edinburgh he concludes with a loyal outburst of admiration for his native hills, and declares that the view before him, "all taken together, forms a scene which, if not in beauty at least in sublimity, excels perhaps anything of the kind to be seen in the Southern Kingdom."