ENGLISH DIARIES

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE CAMEL AND THE NEEDLE'S EYE

THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY

DEMOCRACY AND DIPLOMACY

WARS AND TREATIES (1815-1914)

A CONFLICT OF OPINION (a discussion on the Failure of the Church)

RELIGION IN POLITICS

THE PRIORY AND MANOR OF LYNCH- MERE AND SHULBREDE

WITH DOROTHEA PONSONBY REBELS AND REFORMERS

;nglish diaries

A REVIEW OF ENGLISH DIARIES FROM THE SIXTEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON

DIARY WRITING BY

ARTHUR PONSONBY, M.P.

' No kind of reading is so delightful, so fascinating, as this minute history of a man's self."

MACAULAY

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METHUEN & GO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

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First Published in 1923

PRINTED IN GRBAT BRITAIN

To J. P.

AND

F. E, G. P.

CONTENTS _^

PREFACE vii

INTRODUCTION— Diary Writing ^

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF DIARIES . . . . 45

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIARIES ..... 55

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DIARIES :

Sir Simonds d'Ewes "^1

Sir Henry Swngsby ...••.• "^6

Samuel Pepys . . • ^2

John Evelyn ....•••• ^^

Henry Teonge ...••••• l^T^

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MINOR DIARIES . .11

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DIARIES :

John Wesley ....•••• IS-

The Earl of Egmont. ...... 16'.

Fanny Burney .....-•• ^'^^

William Windham .....•• 18^

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY minor diaries . . . 19f

1

nineteenth-century diaries:

B. R. Haydon 254

Byron 264

ix

X ENGLISH DIARIES

NINETEENTH-CENTURY DIARIES— conf. :

CuAULES Greville ....... 272

William Cobbett ....... 280

Queen Victoria . ... . . . . . 288

Caroline Fox ........ 300

General Gordon . . . . . . . 306

NINETEENTH-CENTURY MINOR DIARIES . . .314

TWENTIETH-CENTURY DIARIES 424

J

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DEX 4*5

PREFACE

I WAS attracted to the study of Diary writing, not by the well-known diaries which are a part of English history or literature, but by the fragments of journals of quite obscure people which are tucked away in the collections of archa- ological and other learned Societies or unprinted. They seemed to me so human in their interest that they were worthy of being better known. In fact, when embarking on my collection I was inchned at first to leave out the celebrated diarists. The dividing line, however, would have been too difficult to draw, and a book which was to be a study of diary-writing would have been incomplete if the best examples were omitted.

Once I began to collect I found the field opened out pretty widely. There were pubhshed diaries some of which had been forgotten, there were privately printed diaries, there were manu- script diaries in hbraries or in private houses, and there were diaries absorbed by or scattered in biographies. I had to put a limit to the range of my net. Tempted as I was by the great foreign diarists, I soon saw there was obviously material enough at home. Even within the United Kingdom, if part of my object was to unearth what was little known, I found I should have to confine myself to England alone. This deprived me of some specially good diaries, such as Sir Walter Scott's, Carlyle's, Sir John Moore's, Swift's and John Mitchel's. But to reach the more obscure diarists in Scotland and Ireland special research on the spot would be necessary. In England alone I found indeed as much, if not more, than I could manage. The only other limita- tion I imposed on myself, and that very willingly, was that my diarists should not be living.

I have not set out to select the best diaries or even only good diaries. My object has been to give a full representation of all shades of diary-writing, long and short, historical, public and private, good, bad and indifferent.

In the reviews which follow the Introduction each diary is dealt with separately. After much consideration I found this a better way than grouping them. The diaries are treated more

vii

viii ENGLISH DIARIES

from the subjective point of view as illustrations of the method, manner, and character of their authors, than from the objective point of view, that is to say the consideration of the subjects about >vhich they wrote. I have not attempted an impartial and colourless survey which would give every diary the same amount of attention, leaving the reader to form his own judgment. But I have criticised freely and expressed my own individual opinion and preferences at the risk of failing to secure in all cases a full measure of agreement from my readers. I have thought it well to insert a few biographical notes, specially in the case of more or less unknown people.

Privately printed and manuscript diaries have been kindly lent to me. Some of the diaries are no doubt rare and out of print, but many are available in any large public library. They are, however, not always easy to find, because diaries are not catalogued as diaries ; some books which are called diaries are not diaries at all, and some diaries are hidden away in Lives, j

In order to illustrate fully the different styles and methods, a fair number are included in the series. However, I may quite Avell have missed some diaries which are well worthy of attention.* I do not think I need apologise for having devoted a volume to Enghsh Diaries. The study has been repaying, and the subject is one that has hitherto been insufficiently explored. A man who buys a dog immediately becomes interested in other people's dogs. On this analogy I hope anyhow the diary-keepers of to-day may like to know how others have kept diaries in days gone by. I am indebted to the owners of several unpubhshed manu- script diaries wliich have been placed at my disposal. The passages quoted from them appear for the first time in print, and a note of acknowledgment is inserted in each particular case. I have received the kind consent of the pubHshers of the bio- graphies for the reproduction of the diary entries which have been extracted from these books. My thanks are due to several friends who have helped to call my attention to certain diaries which I might otherwise have missed, and more especially to Mr. Charles Strachey, C.B., for his valuable assistance in revising the proofs. A. P.

Shulbbede Pkiory, Sussex. 1922.

1 The Farington Diary and Sir Algernon West's Diaries appeared too late to be included ; and Mr. Wilfred Blunt was still alive when the book was concluded.

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ENGLISH DIARIES

INTRODUCTION

ON

DIARY WRITING

THERE is a verj^ clear distinction between diary writing Diary and other forms of writing. A consciousness of some ^^^*^^ literary capacity, however meagre it may be or however with unjustified any such assumption may be, stands beliind every other other form of writing except letter writing. In diary writing *°^.°^^ no such consciousness need exist nor indeed is any literary cap- acity necessary. Diary writing is within the reach of every human being who can put pen to paper and no one is in a more advan- tageous position than anyone else for keeping a diary. People of all ages and degrees who may never have ventured to write a line for publication and may be quite incapable of any literary effort, are able to keep a diary the value of which need not in any way suffer from their literary incapacity. On the contrary, literary talent may be a barrier to complete sincerity. Diaries may or may not be called literature, some undoubtedly have literary value, but this has nothing whatever to do with their merit as diaries.^

A diary, that is to say the daily or periodic record of personal Histoi experiences and impressions, is of course a very different thing from history, although some of the older diaries have been of great use in furnishing the historian with facts and giving him examples of contemporary opinion. When Greville concludes one of his entries with " I am too sleepy now to go on with the subject," one feels immediately the wide distinction between the daily contemporary diarist-observer depending for present events

^ In the four-voliime history of English hteratiire edited by R. Garnett and E. Gosse only about a dozen of the diaries mentioned in this volume are referred to. 1

ENGLISH DIARIES

Autobio- graphy

Letters

only on his own eyes and ears and memory and the historian making his balanced estimate of the past from the mass of docu- ments with which he is surrounded. For a true judgment of the significance of public affairs one must of course await what Mr. George Trevelyan calls " the slow foot of history." But the incomplete and necessarily restricted comments of the eye-witness have a merit of their o^\^l although by themselves they cannot be regarded as history.

A diary differs from autobiography, as in the one we get the fresh relation of events at the moment, and in the other the events are moulded and trimmed into a unified whole more often than not with a view to pubhcation, such for instance as George Fox's Journal, which is not a daily record but an autobiographical survey. Memoirs and Reminiscences are nearly always written for pubhcation. Modelled though they may be on diary mem- oranda and dated periodically they are presented in narrative form, more easily read perhaps, with all the roughness and repeti- tions of diary writing eliminated but with a consequent loss of spontaneity and individuality. There are cases in which the (Mviding line between memoirs and diaries is difficult to draw. But as a general rule memoirs do not record the events of the day on that day.

Lastly, letter writing has httle or no resemblance to diary writing. Letters may contain fresh impressions and personal confidences and confessions, they may be written in almost diary form, but the consciousness in the writer of an immediate recipient exercises a restraint on the author and produces a certain sort of self-consciousness which may be entirely absent from the pages of a diary. Moreover rarely if ever are they found in the regular and complete sequence of a diary. Every one writes letters but a very small percentage of them are readable to anyone but the recipient. Comparatively few people keep diaries, yet it would seem that a fairly large proportion of them have some sort of general human interest. Letters may be said to have two parents, the writer and the recipient. Diaries have only one. A diary can be written with no thought whatever of the discriminating eye of a pubhsher, of the critical eye of a re- viewer, or even of the interested or bored eye of a reader. No pause is needed for modelling phrases, no attention need be given to form, even grammar can go to the winds, and above all there need be no explanations. All restraints can be hfted and in the open fields of fact and fancy the diarist can browse, repose or gallop along at his own sweet will.

DIARY WRITING 3

We may claim, therefore, that diary writing is a unique form of writing. The Hterary, the learned and the great by no means necessarily excel in this particular art. It is confined to no one class, no one profession, no one age of life. Sovereigns, scholars, sportsn^en, tradesmen, philosophers, old women, and children all write diaries.

There is no need to trace the genesis of diary writing far Origin back into history. Although it is conceivable that documents ^^^ of the nature of diaries existed in England before the sixteenth of "^^^ century and have been destroyed, there is no real evidence of the writing existence of what we now know as private diaries in the previous centuries. Instances can of course be found of more personal writing, of chronicles, of accounts, or of reflections. But these are not diaries. The idea of writing down daily thoughts and notes on passing events, especially when it takes a more or less introspective form, is of comparatively modern growth, and would seem to be the outcome of the increasing self-consciousness which intellectual development has produced in humanity. It is a result of psychological evolution, of expanding self-knowledge ^ and subtler powers of analysis. As the centuries pass, the diary- habit seems to gain ground and will probably assume more gener- ally an introspective form. The objective journals will continue, but the more acutely analytical diaries like Arthur Graeme West's (The Diary of a Dead Officer) and Barbellion's (The Diary of a Disappointed Man) in the twentieth century are likely to increase in number, more especially since the serious introduction of psycho-analysis.

Some people may be reluctant to confess to their contempor- Diaries aries that they are keeping a diary. That is why diaries are ^®P* nearly all " private " in the lifetime of the author. Anyone P"^**® suspected of careful diary-keeping would naturally be approached with some caution. If he be a Pepys, a Burney, or a Greville he would defeat his own object if the fact were generally known that he was taking notes ; his friends and acquaintances would become reticent and shy in his presence. Anyone making inquiries about diary-keeping may quite well be met with a denial from an habitual diarist. So the practice goes on, so to speak, quietly and behind the scenes. The production of a diary in a law court is not an uncommon occurrence. A few people burst into print in their lifetime, but many diaries are discovered afterwards, some- times long afterwards. A large number of people will be reluctant that anything they have written of a private character should ever reach the public eye, and they may take steps to prevent it.

ENGLISH DIARIES

Bio-

graj/hies

Classifica tion of diaries

Daily writing

IndiscrO' tious

A classic instance of a diary which was converted into a Bio- graphy— but an unusual case because it was the diary of the Biographer and not of the subject of the Biography— is Boswell's. It was a detailed objective record carefully kept for a specific purpose. Boswell was known even during a meal to tak^ out his tablets and make notes and he often stayed up late at night enter- ing every incident and word of his intercourse with Johnson. But when it came to the publication of his great book he aban- doned the diary form except for the Tour to the Hebrides. Frag- mentary extracts from diaries are sometimes quoted in bio- graphies, as, for instance, in the Tennyson Memoir, merely to fill up gaps in the chronological sequence of events.

But taking the diaries that have remained more or less intact, they may be found to fall roughly into three classes : (i) the regular diary record with only occasional breaks, (ii) the periodic record written at intervals summing up several days, weeks, or even months. These two classes are often combined ; and (iii) the diary that is written up and edited by the author in later years (the dates often being retained) either with a view to pub- lication or because he or she in retrospect considers a better com- position may be produced by emendation and by the pruning away of indiscretions.

Daily writing differs considerably from writing even a few days later. The impulsive note of the moment catches a mood and picks up an impression which may in twenty-four hours evaporate and which in a week or month will have entirely disappeared. But it must be noted that daily dates do not always necessarily imply daily writing. The methodical daily Avriter, when he misses a day or two, writes up those days separately under their dates when he resumes his writing. A daily record is not by any means more accurate ; on the contrary the focus is too strong, the perspective too restricted and consequently the vision is warped. But accuracy is no particular asset in diary writing except from the point of historical research. Many daily diaries are rendered priceless as human documents by just the httle petty trifling details which after a few hours' reflection the writer would have omitted.

Indiscretions are sometimes the colour of a diary, and their removal seriously impairs the quality of the writing. Autobio- graphers, and more especially biographers, may find themselves compelled to cut away personalities from the more modem diaries in their fear of offending the susceptibilities of the living. That is why the older diaries, where no such scruples need exist,

DIARY WRITING 5

are often more real and more human. Biographers who are in possession of a diary will dismiss all passages which may not reflect credit on their subject. In such work the tendency to idealise prevails, reputations have to be kept up and heroes elevated on to pedestals. A diarist's undignified little details are discarded, but actuality and truth may suffer. No editor can be trusted not to spoil a diary.

Diaries definitely WTitten for publication obviously differ very materially from private diaries. As Macaulay said, inten- tion to publish " destroys the charm proper to diaries." But this point must be more fully considered when the question of motive on the part of the diarist is examined.

Broadly speaking another classification may be applied to Historical diaries : (a) those which are of historical or archaeological value ^^^, P^7' on account of the subjects of which they treat and (6) those iater^t that are of psychological interest on account of the light they throw on the personality of the diarist. i

There are two words which if they were used strictly would help to draw the distinction between these two classes. The word Journal should be reserved for the purely objective historical or scientific records, and the word Diary for the personal mem- oranda, notes and expressions of opinion. Some it is true might fall across the division. But as it is, the words are used quite indis- criminately and give no guidance as to the nature of the record.

Political, historical and public chronicles such as Rugge's, Luttrell's, Lord Malmesbury's, Greville's, and Senior's, would come under the first heading, although some of them contain personal comments. In the second category the diaries may be found to be a good deal more interesting and arresting. A shop assistant (Strother) or a storekeeper (Thomas Turner) may claim more of our attention than one who has lived in the midst of exciting events and associated with important people. But the variety displayed in diary writing as regards method, regularity, and style is endless. In writing history, fiction, or even letters you may adapt your style to the model of some admired author. In diary writing this is much more difficult. If you are making daily entries the effort is too great ; you have no time to think, you do not want to think, you want to remember, you cannot consciously adopt any particular artifice ; you jot down the day's doings either briefly or burst out impulsively here and there into detail ; and without being conscious of it, you yourself emerge and appear out of the sum total of those jottings, however brief they may be.

6 ENGLISH DIARIES

Motive Why do people write diaries ? This question is not easy to

answer in a sentence, for the motive seems to vary widely and is sometimes not apparent on the surface. It is not possible to generalise on the subject. Cliildren are often encouraged to keep a diary or enjoined to keep one for disciplinary reasons, and the majority of them find the effort too great, and discon- tinue it when they grow up. Queen Victoria began at the age of 13, Elizabeth Fry before she was 16, and Fanny Burney at 15, if not earlier, Gladstone when he was at Eton, and all of them kept it up to the end of their lives. Edward VI wTote at about the age of 12 and an instance will be given of a child (Mary BrowTie), who wrote for a special period, and some examples of diaries begun but not continued are also included. Diaries begun about the age of 20 are common, but there are also many instances of regular diary writing begun at a later age. Pepys began at 27, Fynes Chnton at 28, BjTon at 30, Windham at 34, Rutty at 56, Bubb Dodington at 58, and so far as continuance of writing is concerned there are the cases of Henry Crabb Robin- son and Edward Pease, who w^ere still keeping diaries when they were over 90.

Habit The habit having been acquired, either in youth or later, a

diarist may continue without having any clear notion with regard to the eventual fate of his diary. In fact, habit and nothing else may account for the \vriting of a good many diaries. Habit also will make a methodical man keep memoranda of his doings, notes and accounts for future reference, as Windham puts it, " to strengthen the powers of recollection." Daily single line notes have been entered by business men over long periods. A case is known of a very methodical diarist who before he wrote his record of the day re-read the entries of corresponding dates in former years. It is clear that the disciphnary effort of regular wTiting is pleasant ; and as time passes the growing volumes become a treasure.

Egotism But beyond the child age and beyond bald business memoranda the question arises : Is egotism the mainspring of diary writing ? The answer to this is yes. But it does not carry us very far, because most people are egotists whether they are diary writers or not, and egotism except in excess ought not to be regarded as a fault. In some cases a diary may be a sort of safety valve for egotism and outwardly the diarist may not appear to be so egotistical as a more obvious egotist who wants to pour out his egotism on his friends, and not confine it to the pages of a private note-book. Indeed, a man may appear very reticent socially

DIARY WRITING 7

yet all the while he may be unburdening himself privately in the pages of a very full diary. A diarist is self-conscious and some- times perhaps self-absorbed. A diary, however, may simply serve to enable the writer to take a detached point of view of himself which will be helpful. Egotism in its extreme sense cannot be said to be universally attributable to all known diarists. Vanity, however, in varying degrees, sometimes perhaps in an inordinate degree, can more accurately be recognised as the vice of many diarists.

The autobiographer is a notorious egotist and usually founds his books on a diary, but he has gone a long step further than the diarist. There are well-known instances of literary men who have wrapped autobiographical episodes in a more or less fictional setting in their endeavour to avoid the crudity of purely personal disclosures.

While it may be argued that the highest type of being, so self- less as never for a moment to consider that anything he thought or did was worth recording, would not keep a diary, he anyhow is a rarity ; and it is not selflessness which prevents most people from keeping a diary. In fact it is impossible to classify diarists as a type, foi among them may be found all sorts and conditions from the loftiest to the most common, from the most original to the most conventional.

Nevertheless some rough analysis of motive in diary writing The itch can be made. Having disposed of Habit, we come next to " the ° record itch to record," which is an overflowing and exuberant desire for self-expression. People who witness important events, come in contact with celebrated people, or themselves have interesting and exciting experiences, have a natural desire to write about them, without any clearly formed intention as to what they will do with their notes, if they are not in the form of letters. Some- times they may write definitely for eventual publication or some- times for the information of their family. But the mere desire to write down their impressions is the instinct which impels them. So strong is this that some will write about public events which they have not witnessed and about which they express no opinion, knowing all the time that a far fuller account of them will be given in newspapers and other public records. Others may confine themselves to the recital of special personal experi- ences in a particular period without being regular diarists. This sort of record differs to some extent from a private diary, but we will consider it more fully when we reach the question of the various subjects dealt with in diaries.

8 ENGLISH DIARIES

ISurvey- Without any excess of egotism and without vanity there are ing Life pg^p^g ^yi^-i^ orderly minds who by means of private writing want to make a sort of survey of their position and of their opinions as well as of events which concern them. They have sentiment and feeling for the past, they are interested in the stages of life's journey and they do not want to leave unrecorded anything that has struck them deeply. They use their diary pages for clearing their minds, for threshing out human problems, for taking stock of the situation, for weighing the pros and cons when they find themselves confronted with dilemmas. They consider the practice useful. They may even derive from it the same sort of relief as others find in prayer. Some may write down actual prayers while others will as an equivalent brace themselves by a full contemplation of the facts they have to face set down in writing. Although diaries such as these may eventually find their way into print, publication is not present in the minds of the writers. Self in old Then there is the not imcommon desire to put down on paper age, and an account of daily events and opinions on men and matters for postenty pg^^g^j jj^ j^^gj. ijfg_ ^hat is to say, some people feel sure that in their old age they will want to be reminded of past events and of their changing moods. They write for their future selves. They store, they collect, they are reluctant to lose any passing thoughts. Some again desire definitely to paint their own portrait for posterity, and as they write they are conscious of the eyes of future generations perusing their record though they may keep it locked up from the inspection of their contemporaries. Posterity will know less, will be more lenient, and may accept a man at his own valuation. As Greville says : " Some will pour forth upon paper and for the edification and amusement of pos- terity what they never would have revealed to living ear ; but the majority of those who indulge in this occupation probably only tell what they desire to have known." Con- In this connection it may be said that it is almost impossible

sciousness j^j. anyone to write without imagining a reader, so to speak at reader the other end, however far off that other end may be — self in old age, family, a friend, the public or remote posterity. Some diarists face this question openly, many seem to write for self in old age, the most critical reader of all, although they do not realise that as they write ; others write for a member of the family, others again for the public ; but the majority leave the matter undecided or unrevealed. We cannot know, but we should be inclined to think that the case of a person keeping a

DIARY WRITING 9

regular diary with a definite intention throughout of destroying it before death must be rare, although no doubt many during their lifetime may have destroyed diaries that have been begun, or parts of diaries. Johnson, in talking to Boswell of the Journal the latter kept, said he " might surely have a friend who would burn it in case of his death." Testamentary injunctions on this point may have existed. But most diaries have been left or dis- covered with no sort of clue as to the intentions of the writer.

Mr. Parkinson, one of the editors of the Chetham Society's volumes, says on this question of consciousness of a reader : " It is not easy to call to mind a journal, private as it may profess to be, which has been undeniably written without some view to a possible reader. The writer, though in his dressing-gown and slippers, still seems to feel that some privileged friend may by some possible chance rush in upon his privacy, and so he arranges his undress with some (perhaps unconscious) view to such a casualty."

This question of a possible reader becomes psychologically Intro- very interesting when we come to the class of diaries containing ^®°^^"^® disclosures which reflect no sort of credit on the writer. And this brings us to a distinct and not uncommon motive in diary writing which is the more or less morbid desire for self-analysis, self-dissection, introspection, and even self -revelation. It may take the form of private thoughts which the writer feels he cannot communicate to any friend ; it may take the form of confessions of faults and resolutions for self-correction ; it may be a private vent for complaint or for the commonest of all human failings, self-pity ; it may be a self-indulgent expansion of egotism, or an expected aid to self-discipline. It has been known even to take the form of unrestrained revelations on sexual matters with details which one would suppose the writer would shrink from allowing others to read. If sensuality looms large in the inner consciousness, the attempt of diarists to note it is anyhow a proof of their honesty. So strong is the impulse for ruthless self- dissection in some natures that they will dehberately lay bare their very souls with an almost reckless hope that posterity shall see them naked. But in the majority of cases the confessions are general and vague ; the actual reasons for self-condemnation are not specified. The diarist generalises on his weakness, his sin, his lapses without always recording the particular occasion or character of the faults in question. He is aware of his failure and wants to record his penitence, and by aid of his diary to make resolutions for improvement. It may be the consciousness of a

10 ENGLISH DIARIES

possible reader which restrains him from actually relating the < fault in question. Penitence, however vague, will be counted to his credit, the description of the fault committed might lower him in the estimation of posterity. Introspective writers often seem to entertain " an inferiority complex " and to hope that by carefully recording their symptoms they may be able to make some helpful diagnosis.

We have our Haydons and Barbellions, but the most famous instances of introspective diaries are not British. There is some- thing alien to the British temperament in Tolstoy, in Amiel, or in Marie Bashkirtseff who flourishes her dissecting knife and cries : " I not only say all the time what I think but I never contem- plate hiding for an instant what might make me appear ridiculous or prove to my disadvantage. For the rest I think myself too admirable for censure." Reticence and reserve are national characteristics outwardly and probably inwardly too ; and among available English diaries there are none which extend the practice of self-dissection to such an extreme as the continental diarists. Most Englishmen think it bad form to be too expansive or to give themselves away. They conceive it improper to write down their innermost feelings, and they shun like the pest anything that approaches affectation. Self-con- Although the honesty and sincerity of the introspective writers sciousness ^^^y ^^ beyond question, they do not necessarily by their method give a faithful picture of themselves. Indeed it is not through their intentional and deliberate self-dissection that we really get to know people. Such method is too self-conscious and too artificial. A diarist reveals himself or gives himself away by casual and quite unpremeditated entries far more than by lab- orious self-analysis. Thomlinson's diary is a good instance of this.

We think we know ourselves better than others know us. But the truth is we only know the inside half, and it is doubtful whether any human being in varying moods can describe even that accurately. Moreover the little shop window we dress and expose to view is by no means all that others see of us. We may be very self-conscious about things which others hardly notice and throughout our lives we may be entirely unaware of some glaring peculiarity which continually strikes our neighbours. A pelican is not the least self-conscious about the size of his beak. A peacock may be self-conscious about his tail, but he thinks too that he has a beautiful voice. On the other hand, outsiders may believe that some person is quite oblivious of certain failings till

DIARY WRITING 11

it is discovered by his diary that he has been struggHng with them all along.

We have said that the honesty and sincerity of indiscreet and Self- unreticent writers are beyond question. This perhaps requires '^®°®P''^°'^ some qualification. Self-deception is very prevalent. There is a good deal of truth in Byron's remark in his diary, " I fear one lies more to one's self than to anyone else," or as Gladstone puts it, " I do not enter on interior matters. It is so easy to write, but to write honestly nearly impossible." The luxury of self- depreciation or self-justification which can be written without fear of contradiction or criticism from outsiders is very likely to upset anyone's judgment. Some people with an eye on pos- terity are apt to make themselves out worse than they are so that by self-disparagement they may eventually get credit for being better than they seemed.

The introspective Diary, however, is specially interesting as it Use of

often discloses unsuspected features, and the light thrown on the ^^'^^°-

., , tj • n • 1 • • TP^ n spective

writer s personality commg irom withm gives a different and new diaries

relief to the tissue of his character. On the subject of these more intimate diaries Henry Fynes Clinton, who kept one, makes the following observations : "I am not sure that the practice is beneficial. Many evil thoughts that would pass away from the anind are arrested in their passage, fixed in the attention and made permanent by the habit of noting them down. Many transient uneasinesses too are magnified in importance by being registered in the journal and a morbid sensibility generated ; thus we become less satisfied with our condition and with those who surround us. Perhaps then it is safer to confine a journal to a mere diary of fads, but carefully to abstain from setting down opinions upon subjects that try the passions deeply. Let the transient thought be transient ; let us forbear to give it a habita- tion and a name, form and substance, in our minds."

Some diarists express a similar opinion, while others agree with J. A. Syraonds' verdict, " ordinary log book a poor affair." As to whether the practice is beneficial to the writer or not we need express no opinion. The fact remains that in varying degrees it is fairly common with diary-writers ; and readers have no reason to deplore it. A long subjective diary giving as it <ioes the history of a personality is certainly more interesting to read than a long objective diary giving a bare record of facts.

It will be seen that there is a very wide difference between the motives of the two extremes : the impersonal memorandum- writers and morbid self-dissectors. The former often retain

12 ENGLISH DIARIES

their habit over a number of years, whereas the latter generally cover short periods, although Heywood, Windham, Haydon, Fynes Clinton, and Barbellion are exceptions. There are diarists who write so much about themselves that one is sometimes sur- prised they do not write more. It seems there is always some limit; either reluctance or disinclination may prevent them from noting their most poignant personal experiences. More- over, even regular diarists will hesitate to write down a passing impression or opinion coloured as it may be by momentary bias. They have sufficient foresight to realise that after reflection their view may alter and their considered opinion is likely to be quite different, but that owing to a certain inherent inconsequence and carelessness in diary-keeping, the hasty opinion may remain uncorrected and conceivably be read. Caution, however, is not as a rule a diarist's characteristic, and there are many who im- pulsively jot down the passing thought. It may be found that a diarist sometimes fails to note some preoccupation until events arise which force it to the front. He may then disclose how much the circumstances or impressions have been occupying his thoughts. Non- Xo those who have never kept, and never intend to keep, any

sort of diary — that is to say, the majority of people — the idea of deliberately sitting down, inscribing on paper and keeping a record of passing thoughts, and worse still of private senti- ments and innermost feelings, is absolutely and entirely incom- prehensible.

Here we come to the very clear and sharp dividing line between diarists and those whom we may call non-diarists. The interest- ing thing about it is that outwardly on the surface there is no sort of indication of the difference between the two. It is an interior matter of psychology. A diarist cannot be unfaihngly detected by his appearance, manner, habit, or position, although owing to certain circumstances some may be suspected of keeping a diary. But unless the fact is unconcealed or well known, no one can divide, with anything like accuracy, even his intimate friends into those who keep diaries and those who do not.

Some attempt is being made here to explain why people keep diaries, and it must be simply the entire absence of any of the motives, incentives, and peculiarities of disposition enumerated, which gives us the negative explanation of why people do not keep diaries, entries in before dealing with the subjects which occur in diaries, it should diaries be noted that every diarist has to exercise a certain discretion

DIARY WRITING 13

and to go through a process of sifting and selection. It is mani- festly impossible to record everything, although at least one pathetic attempt has been made to do the impossible. The chronicling of every thought, word and deed from morning to night would be too great a tax on the memory and would occupy too much time and space. The diarist therefore chooses the incidents which at the moment he thinks matter — ^the governing facts of the day. The single sentence or even a single word entries of regular diarists, except those which consist merely of a note of a birth, death, dinner, visit, journey, or some such ordinary occurrence, are often curiously characteristic. The following very brief entries extracted from diaries may be given as examples :

Dr. Dee — I had a grudging of the ague.

Thomas Marchant — We had a dish of green peas for dinner to-day.

Thobesby — This day as yesterday wholly spent in study.

Pepys — Looking after my workmen, whose laziness do much trouble me.

Heywood — I had gracious meltings of the heart in prayer. God helpt me in all the duties of the day, blessed be God.

Beppy Byrom — Smoothing (i.e. ironing).

Gale — Having taken three pills I went to Peerless for a \d. worth of warm ale.

Wesley (at 22) — Resolved to reflect twice a day.

Windham — Saw a tight battle at the corner of Russell Street.

Fynes Clinton — Hodie Augustinimi " De civitate Dei ! "

Dr. Rutty — A little swinish at dinner.

Elizabeth Fry — A much better day though many faults.

Ha YD ON — Nothing but horror and idleness to reflect on for the last three weeks.

Cajroline Fox — Plenty to do, and plenty to love and plenty to pity. No one need die of ennui.

Baker — Prawns, shrimps, and cockles.

George Eliot — Read Theocritus ; meditated on characters for Middle- march.

Col. Ponsonby — Very hot, played at rackets, on guard at Bank.

Rose — No material alteration in the King's health.

Gladstone — Wrote a brief abstract of the intended Bill ; wood cutting.

CoBBETT — At Burghclere, one half the time writing and the other half hare-hunting.

Lord Colchester — I carried up the Population BiU to the Lords.

Macaulay — ^Wrote : this Glencoe business is infernal.

Lord Malmesbury — Dinner at Zinzendorfi's, first assembly at Count Finckenstein's.

Barbellion — The immediate future horrifies me.

The regular diarist at his accustomed moment, probably the last thing at night, scribbles down the incidents of the day. If the day appears to him comparatively uneventful and he is in no mood for general reflections, or if he is hurried or tired, he will just register what appears to him the most salient impression —

14

ENGLISH DIARIES

Subjects dealt with in diaries

Health

The weather

enough for him to recall the day when he re-reads the entry, if he ever does, and sufficient to prevent a break in the continuity.

The subjects dealt with in diaries may reveal motive ; the manner of their treatment discloses the diarist's style and method. Topics of the most frequent occurrence may be considered ser- iatim.

The regular diarist will invariably enlarge on the state of his health. Nothing could be more natural. If you write on the day even a bilious attack or a bad cold matters considerably and looms large. If you write two or three days later the memory of the minor ailments has vanished. Operations and prolonged illness will be noted by anyone who is keeping a faithful account of his days, because they are impediments to action and alter the whole routine of life. Morbid instances can be found of people who literally watch the state of their health, and the fact that they suffer no doubt gives the clue to their morbidity. John Baker is an extreme instance, but Dr. Dee, Pepys, Rutty, New- combe, Bjrron, George Eliot, J. A. Symonds, Barbellion, and many others give a good many particulars with regard to their health. In the earlier diaries both the diseases and the cures are, to say the least of them, curious. Timothy Burrell has " flatuleni spasms " from eating new cheese after getting his feet wet, and Ashmole hangs three spiders round his neck, which cures his ague. But in the later diaries, too, health remarks are very common. Even Greville, in what is almost an official chronicle, invariably notes his attacks of the gout. A carefully-kept analysis of symp- toms may have considerable value from the medical point of view.

The weather comes under much the same category as health. A fine day or a rainy day affects the mood of the sensitive daily writer, and certain temperaments are undoubtedly very susceptible to the cheering influence of sunshine and the depressing effects of an overcast sky. That it rained to-day is an important matter to-day, as it may have entirely altered the course of our pursuits. Next Tuesday we shall not remember whether it rained or not. Daily diarists therefore often note the weather regularly. Haydon's father, whose diary was destroyed, hardly made an entry without registering the state of the wind. In naval diaries of course the weather stands out as a special feature. Some periodic diarists note storms, hurricanes, frost, heat, or drought, more especially if they are personally affected by them. Even in very scrappy diaries earthquakes, comets, and floods are described.

DIARY WRITING 15

Food figures very prominently in many diaries. A good dinner Food is noted by people who might never be suspected of having noticed the food at all. The good meal leaves a deeper impression than might be supposed. There are more remarks about food in regular diaries than in occasional diaries. Sometimes it is elabor- ated into a special feature of the diary, as, for instance, Teonge's tremendous dinners and Lady Nugent's Jamaica banquets, and we have an instance in which over-eating is a special vice to be corrected. There are many diaries, however, in which food is never mentioned at all.

Drink occurs more often than food. The immediate effects of Drink excess naturally colour the outlook of the daily diary writer. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries drink is very prominent as drunkenness was very common. It becomes the cause of the diarist's hilarity or depression, sometimes of his illness, and in more than one diary resolutions against over-indulgence are con- scientiously noted. Turner's constant and it is to be feared fruitless endeavours to overcome his excesses occupy a large part of his extraordinary but very amusing diary. Mrs. Browne's companions on board ship were certainly not a sober company.

In the earlier diaries we get more domestic details than in the Domestic later ones, where original manuscripts are not at our disposal and ^®*^^^ where the editor's blue pencil has been more rigorously used. The relations of husband and ^vife and of parents and children occur in the fuller and more intimate diaries. Pepys' relations with his wife are almost the most amusing part of his diary. Adam Eyre objects to his wife brawhng ; Turner's two mves Peggy and Molly are realistically represented ; Burrell has an affection of the stomach owing to his irritation with his sister; Baker's devotion to " Uxor " is very pathetic, Egmont's eulogy of his wife comes almost as a surprise in his voluminous official diary. Mary Shelley's brief reference to the death of her child is tragic.

Servant troubles are frequently noted, sometimes by writers for whom such trivial mundane affairs might be supposed to have no sort of importance. Dr. Dee says his wife is " desperately angry " with her maids ; Shngsby gives elaborate details about his cook, his gardener and other servants ; the learned Ashmole has trouble with his man Hobbs ; Timothy Burrell is impatient when his servant puts too much salt in his broth ; Adam Eyre whips Jane ; Newcombe complains of " the villainous carriage " of his servants, and Ehzabeth Fry is depressed at their ingratitude. Servants, indeed, like ill-health and the weather, can upset the day's routine.

\

16 ENGLISH DIARIES

It would be interesting if a diary could reveal their side of the story. But so far a domestic servant's diary is not available.

Besides the noting of family and domestic affairs there are instances of diarists who register the most trivial details. A case is known of a man who wrote down the number of cigarettes he smoked each day. Religion No subject occurs more frequently than religion in some shape or form. Accounts of sermons, theological discussion, the reading of religious books, philosophic meditations, self-examination, devotional practices and private prayer may be found in abun- dance in many diaries. Sermons are given sometimes very fully. Manningham reports them almost verbatim. Thanksgi\dng and supplication to God, whether expressed in a sentence or in a page, may be discovered in almost any regularly kept diary. In fact it may be said that a temperament addicted to religious medita- tion or speculation is just the sort of temperament that produces a diary. As Ehzabeth Fry puts it, " that is the advantage of a true journal, it leads the mind to look inwards." In the seven- teenth century and later the keeping of a register of facts and feelings was regarded as part of the rehgious exercise of pious people. The seventeenth-century diaries given here consist very largely of those of divines. But apart from these, declarations of faith in supernatural intervention and expressions of humility or of gratitude to the Deity find their way into the great majority of private diaries, no matter what the profession or character of the diarist may be. In some diaries which con- tain a great deal of religious matter, a sanctimonious, not to say self-righteous, touch may occasionally be detected, and the common tendency of mistaking dependence on a supernatural power for spiritual excellence. These diarists do not show any real per- spicacity in self-knowledge or self-analysis because they generally take refuge in writing down more or less conventional religious formula? of self-disparagement. There may also be found in some cases a scarcely-concealed conviction that the prayer and moralis- ing will at some future date be edifying reading for others. Un- doubtedly a certain natural relief results to the diarist from written expressions of repentance and self-administered homihes, as when Henry Newcombe has " a deale of sweet discourse " about the " baseness " of his heart, " rivers of tears " issue from Thoresby's eyes, and Henry Martyn loathes himself for his " secret abomina- tions." We, as readers, in perusing such diaries find that our glance wanders perhaps rather maliciously over the page in search of the lapses rather than of the conquests. There is colour in

DIARY WRITING 17

faults, but not always in righteousness. The truth is that self- disparagement in excess, even when practised privately, is a form of self-indulgence and does not ring quite true. Both the exultant righteousness and the exaggerated self-abasement in some rehgious diaries are not convincing ; and insincerity is a fatal fault in a diary. But, on the other hand, a really pathetic and even tragic note may be found in some expressions of regret, self-blame and despair, even though they be expressed in a single sentence.

Many people take the opportunity of excursions or travel to Scenery write very full descriptions of the sights they see. Lakes and ^"^ mountains, cathedrals and monuments, inspire travellers with a *^^^^^ desire to write. But it must be frankly confessed that unless the writer is endowed with considerable literary talent this section of their diary is likely to prove extremely dull. Nothing indeed shows up a writer's hterary incapacity more than his attempts to expatiate on the wonders of nature and art ; and his or her (for women are more especially fond of this form of writing) un- restrained enthusiasm in no way makes these passages more tolerable. Only a few instances will be found of diarists who succeed in this line. Even in biographies the chapters on travel are seldom readable. Surveyors' topographical records of their journeys such as the Itinerary of John Leland in the sixteenth century cannot be classed as diaries.

When a diarist meets a celebrity he wiU unfailingly make a note Royalties, of it. When anyone constantly meets celebrities it becomes a celebrities reason for keeping a diary. It certainly must have been the main septal life motive in the case of Crabb Robinson. Contact with sovereigns and royalties frequently produces diary writing. Quite a con- siderable number of diaries deal with the sayings, doings, habits and appearance of roj^alty. For instance, the sections of her diary noted by Emma Sophia Lady Brownlow in her Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian (1867), which is not included in the collection, deal exclusively with minor royalties in Holland. Of course this sort of thing may be well done or badly done. Occasionally we get a vivid and intimate sidelight such as Dee's and Manningham's references to Queen Elizabeth; Pepj^s on Charles II; Lake's account of the marriage of Wilham and Mary, on which occasion Charles II behaved in a highly characteristic way ; Bubb Doding- ton's intercourse with Frederick Prince of Wales and his wife, and Egmont's character sketch of that Prince ; Fanny Burney's conversations with George III and Queen Charlotte ; Lady Char- lotte Bury's striking portrait of Queen Caroline; and Lady Malcolm's description of Napoleon. George IV's " undignified 2

18 ENGLISH DIARIES

practices, at which," Greville tells us, " grave men were shocked," form the subject-matter of many diaries. George calling for brandy when he first meets Carohne of Brunswick was an astonish- ing scene of which Lord Malmesbury was the sole witness.

But often we may get just the bald mention of the presence of royalty, or a list of names of eminent people seen or met. In any case the vision of or casual intercourse with kings, queens, princes, dukes, ministers, poets, authors, painters, and actresses prompts a diarist to go home and write it all down. He feels he is contributing to history. It is certainly true and after all quite natural that every diarist who came within eyeshot or earshot of Dr. Johnson and the Duke of Wellington at once made a special note of it.

Accounts of balls, dinner-parties, country-house parties, cere- monies, pageants, and social functions of every description occur in a multitude of diaries. In fact some diaries may be found to be composed of very little else. It requires an exceptionally skilful pen to make anything of this kind interesting or amusing, especially if it is of fairly recent date. From the class of mind that thinks it worth while to register notliing but bald, social notes it is useless to expect any gleams of perception or indeed anything of interest. Celebrities seem often to be mentioned, not because the writers want to draw a portrait of them, but because they want to in- crease their own importance by showing they were on intimate terms or even acquainted with the great. Indeed keepers of social diaries are apt to give rather a false idea of their own importance. A reader gets the impression that they only dine with authors and great statesmen and consort with notables. They seem to echo the author of Vanity Fair in saying, " I declare I swell with pride as these august names are transcribed by my pen." Unless an eye is kept on the dates the dull days that are omitted are not noticed. We very seldom get " dined with Mrs. Jones " or a character sketch of John Smith, and it must be acknowleged that the unceasing presence of the great is very fatiguing. In the more genuine full diary, minor matters are just as carefully noted, as for instance when Egmont writes, " This day old Mrs. Minshull and Mr. Javaegam dined with us." It is in the category of Social Diaries that more might probably be found than are included in this collection. Miss Mary Bagot's early nineteenth-century diaries quoted in Links with the Past, by Mrs. Charles Bagot (1901), have not been included, as there would seem to be a sufficient number of examples of social diaries in that period. Playgoing is a very favourite topic with some

DIARY WRITING 19

diarists, notably Pepys, Windham, Crabb Robinson, Henry Greyille, and concerts and opera are often described.

Lists of books read or purchased and comments and opinions Books on books are of common occurrence. We get an insight into the diarist's tastes, but searching criticism, even where there is hterary appreciation, is rare. Fynes Chnton gives a curiously elaborate analysis of the books he studies, and of course books figure promin- ently in Macaulay's Diary and Mary Shelley's. There is one case of a soldier's diary (Sir Gerald Graham) in which the books he is reading are the only subject he mentions outside his strictly professional military pursuits. Thomas Green's diary is excep- tional, being almost entirely confined to literary criticism.

Lists of deaths, births, and marriages are common. A few Records diaries are exclusively occupied with them. John Hobson shows and a morbid love of recording deaths. Accounts of expenditure are ^''^'^"^^s often noted in diaries, or anyhow the mention of prices. Giles Moore writes almost exclusively in the language of accounts, and Stapley notes punctihously the exact spot where payments were made. How personal character as well as information as to prices can appear in a list of payments, is illustrated in the page of accounts kept by one of the Ladies of LlangoDen. A good many old account books are available which cannot be reckoned as diaries, although by their weekly and sometimes daily entries they come very near to some of the brief diary memoranda. Mention may be made here of two of these.

There are the household books of the 3rd and 4th Earls of Derby kept between 1561 and 1589.1 The writer of the first one is unknown. William Harington, the steward or secretary, kept the later one. These books give the most exact and minute account of everything connected with their Lordship's household. They contain biUs for aU provisions, food and wine, biUs of fare, Items of wages paid, long lists of servants with orders and regu- lations for the household ; also a carefully kept daily record of all guests who came to stay or who dined, and sometimes the name of the preacher. They give in fact a complete picture of a large Ehzabethan establishment, and incidentally much information with regard to prices.

The other instance is the household account book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmore Hall, 2 kept between 1673 and 1678, which is strictly an account book and not a diary. In it we see not only

1 Chetham Society: Stanley Papers.

» Household Accounts of Sarah Fell of Swarthmore Hall, ed. by Norman Penney, 1920.

20 ENGLISH DIARIES

the liberal provision that was made for the household, but we can note prices, wages and taxes, and various entries give us a ghmpse into the fortunes of the family. There is a note of her gomg to prison in 1676. The tobacco that is bought is used for washing sheep as well as for smoking, " tobacco pipes " are purchased for Sister Susannah, but we can hardly beheve she used them her- self. References to dress show that a " muffe " was bought for Sarah a " black allamonde rounde whiske " for Sister Rachel, " a little pocket looking-glass " for Susannah, and " a vizard maske for myselfe Is. 4d." We also find an echo of the inevitable ser- vant trouble, " Ann Standish's wages for the year is £1 I7s. 6d.,^ but she paid 8*. for a silver spoon lost and 6d. for a pot broken. In fact, an analysis of these carefully kept accounts yields a good

deal of history. u- u u

Another business register and record of payments which has not been included in this collection is PhiUp Henslowe s so-called Diary It consists of memoranda of receipts and payment con- nected with the plays produced between 1592 and 1603 m the theatres of which he was proprietor. While it contains much valuable information from the point of view of literary archaeology, it cannot by any stretch of the definition be classed as a diary. There is a business record of the same description by Thomas Osborne, Duke of Leeds, kept between 1705 and 1712. The dated entries are not daily but very frequent. They are written on long narrow sheets in a rough but clear handwriting, and concern his property, his will, the transfer of stock, mortgages, deaths, tamily iUnesses and dates of parUamentary events. Only once does he express anything like an opinion in an indignant reference to ttie

Act of Toleration. „r ..u- ™4.

No special mention is made of the diary of John Worthmgton who was master of Jesus College, Cambridge, in the middle of the seventeenth century. It is nothing more than an enlarged engage- ment book, although he puts in a few notices about his health. Dowsing's journal, though it can hardly be regarded as a private diary, has been included owing to the unique character o± his

aothes One might think that as food and drink are so often referred to, clothes would be also, but this is not the case. Pepys very elaborate description of his own costume and his wife s stands more or less alone. There are casual references like Giles Moore s scarlet waistcoats, etc., the stockings Burrell purchases for his daughter ; and the Ladies of Llangollen's riding habits Queen Victoria discusses her clothes with Lord Melbourne, and lanny

DIARY WRITING 21

Burney talks of Queen Charlotte's clothes, if not her own. But even daily diarists seldom dwell on the subject.

Thrilling adventures, hairbreadth escapes (Thoresby's danger- Accidents ous ride, Evelyn's adventure with the cut-throats, Crabb Robin- son's encounter with a thief in the Strand, Carohne Fox's escape from a bull), fires, floods, etc., are related even in meagre diaries. The immediate vivid recollection of the event written down per- haps while the diarist is still affected by the experience sometimes give the descriptions a striking reahsm even with diarists whose powers of expression appear normally rather restricted.

Notable public events, a king's death, the outbreak of war, Public, civil commotion, a murder or a trial are noted by many diarists Political even though they may be far removed from the scene. Refer- social ^^nCes to political and public affairs in the diary of some obscure events person in the provinces, although they may be just perfunctory statements, help to hnk him to the centre of national hfe and remind one of the historical period in which he lived. Of course there are full diary records of such events wliich, hke Egmont's or Greville's, become the foundation material for history, the author having had exceptional opportunities for observation. Admiral Cockburn's diary of the voyage to St. Helena is an instance of a short one. Labouchere's Diary of a Besieged Resident in Paris in 1871, though written daily, is not a diary, but articles for a newspaper. They were reprinted from the Daily News. The social political diaries hke Henry Greville's and Raikes' deal largely with pubhc events, and there are two diaries of Speakers which are reserved principally for parliamentary business.

A good many diaries are confined exclusively to the recital of pubhc events, whether national or local, without any personal colour at all. Instances are given, but it is not worth while to examine them all. Nicholas Brown's diary pubhshed in the Sur- tees Society's collection, although it covers a long period (1767 to 1796), is devoid of any but local interest. The diary of Walter Younger (1604-1628), M.P. for Honiton, except for notes on the weather and the crops, is simply a register of pubhc affairs.

If a census of diary keepers could be made it would probably War be found that divines and soldiers headed the hst. Many a man in war time will keep a diary though he has never done so before and does not do so again. War is of such crucial importance while it lasts and so filled with exciting and nerve-racking experi- ences that a participant very naturally wants to make some immediate record of it, however brief. Unfortunately it is a case in which the events to be recorded are too vast for any recorder.

22 ENGLISH DIARIES

The individuality of the writer often, though not always, becomes submerged, and in any event he is confined to noting the particular incidents in his particular corner. While the sum total of such experiences becomes of great value to the military historian, they are in themselves, except for hairbreadth escapes and dangerous adventures, seldom worthy of special notice. There is a sameness about military movements, preparations, tactics and organisation which no pen can relieve. In the rare cases where a writer describes his own sensations, or can give a really graphic picture of scenes and incidents, we get a welcome personal note and the individuality of the diarist emerges. But naturally enough the number of troops he has, the amount of ammunition, the pro- spects of reinforcements, the reported movements of the enemy and the state of the weather are of overmastering importance on the day he writes. But that importance fades quickly. The consequence is that military diaries (many more of which might be cited than are mentioned in this collection) are on the whole not among the most interesting. General Gordon's Khartoum diary is a notable exception.

But in British soldiers' diaries there is a special characteristic which would not be found in the diaries of soldiers of other nations. They write with extreme reticence about dangers and horrors, and they never betray themselves by any display of emotion. Even important engagements are very baldly described. Typical diaries of this description are referred to in the reviews. An instance may be quoted here of an officer in the South African War, who was present at the battles of Modder River and Magers- fontein. In his diary entry he describes a day's fishing, going into detail as to the flies he used and the sort of rod and gut suitable for South African rivers. He notes that he wants a pony for coursing hares and thinks he will find a suitable one at a Dutch farmer's. Then he adds : " We have had two big battles."

But in many soldiers' diaries during the war will be found the recurrence of the three same moods : eagerness to be in action, impatience at the delays and periods of waiting, followed by a longing for the end. Sport and Diarists pretty frequently mention their hunting, fishing and games shooting exploits, and cricket matches are described. But there are diaries kept exclusively for a record of sport. The second Earl of Malmesbury, for instance, kept a journal of his sporting life (1801-1840) in which he entered the quantity of powder and shot he used, the game he killed each day, the time he was out, the distance he walked, and the weather. Hunting diaries are very

DIARY WRITING 23

common. In the history of any Hunt will be found extracts from a number of hunting diaries. In addition to William Goodall's diary which is reviewed, we may mention H. B. Yerburgh's Leaves from a Hunting Diary in Essex ; Edwin Stevens's, the huntsman of the Warwickshire Hunt, whose regular entries cover a number of years in the 'forties ; Lord Willoughby de Broke's diary, and Sir Charles Mordaunt's, with their long, regular and elaborate entries deahng with runs with the hounds. There may be mentioned, too, the diary of the Rev. W. S. Millar in the eighteen sixties, who shows a very keen enjoyment of the sport and is thoroughly pleased with his own exploits. " Rode the Squire, who carried me splendidly, jumping South Newington brook in capital style " — " the most satisfactory kill I have seen this season," etc. This diary of a sporting parson forms an amusing contrast to the many diaries of his fellow-divines which are mentioned here, occupied largely as they are with prayer and self-condemnation. The Extracts from the Diary of a Huntsman, by Thomas Smith, is not a diary, but descriptions of runs and hunting adventures, with advice about keeping hounds. Some of the many hunting diaries are literally voluminous, others just brief notes, but all are totally devoid of any remarks not concerned with the actual sport itself. They are, however, real diaries written probably on the very even- ing of the events recorded. When H. B. Yerburgh writes, " Let me jot it down this Monday evening while memory runs hot within me and ere its colour fades away," he is exercising the method of a true diarist. The curious thing is that these diaries, not only in the similarity of their style, but in the extremely limited range of the subject — the line of country, the fox's course, the conduct of the hounds and of the horses, accounts of accidents, and sometimes a list of people present — are practically unread- able even for other hunting men. The keen enjoyment produces an " itch to record," and these sportsmen write for themselves in their old age so that in the evening of life they can be reminded of these great moments and enjoy once more in imagination the famous runs.

Apart from soldiers, sailors and explorers, it is curious how often Profes- diaries avoid any but the briefest mention of the professional work ^^j.^ of the author. It would seem as if he turned away from his daily professional duties deliberately in order to expand the more private side of his nature in his diary. But there are many too who note the progress and development of their professional work and are obviously absorbed in it, like Gladstone, for instance, who notes little else.

24

ENGLISH DIARIES

Anec- dotes and quota- tions

Gossip

and

scandal

Diaries not

written for pub- lication

While a good anecdote, a joke or a verse may be inserted in many diaries, there are some which seem to be solely kept for collecting and storing such material. Manningham wdth his anec- dotes, and John Rous with his satirical poems, are instances of diaries which come very near to being commonplace books, but they contain other material as well. Miss Frances Wynne's ten volumes, selections from which were published in 1864 under the title of Diaries of a Lady of Quality, are not, as the editor remarks, what is commonly understood or described by the name of diary, but a store of extracts from other people's letters and reminiscences of striking events. They are not included in this collection, although reference is made to Sir M. Grant Duff's large assortment of anecdotes which were produced in diary form.

There are a fair number of collectors of gossip and scandal either in the form of anecdote, rumour or revelation. They seem confident that their notes will be interesting and important in the future, perhaps after they are dead, although some are tempted to let it all out before they die. But contrary to their belief a collection of on dits — " so-and-so told me privately," " I could hardly believe it, but . . .," "I actually heard to-day that ..." — ^makes the dreariest possible reading — more especially when they are stale and a little tarnished from the passage of time. Their only interest lies in the disclosure they give of the type of mind of the writer. However, a sudden little bit of unexpected scandal, a malicious hint or a sly hit, can give a welcome spark and flicker to a low-burning flame.

Many regular diarists take the occasion of their birthday or of the end of the year to make a sort of survey of their lives, review their work and pursuits, or indulge in rehgious or philosophic reflections, and several write up their early life before they began diary writing. In these practices we can see clearly the self- regardant nature of the diarist.

The above subjects have been mentioned as being common to most diaries. But each diary contains something individual, and even in the baldest record phrases and comments will occur which disclose to the reader the idiosyncrasies of the writer. Diaries manifestly not written for publication, while their literary value may often be negligible, are as human documents of peculiar interest. Very often too a diary is all that exists to tell us the story of some otherwise quite unknown person. There is a fascination here in unearthing the unexplored which we do not get in the case of prominent people about whom much else is known beyond what is contained in their diaries. A very poor diary may be printed

p

DIARY WRITING 25

if its author becomes famous, while a very much better diary may never see the hght if its author was pubHcly a person of no particular account.

In all diaries that have been printed — and the great majority of those collected here have been — a certain amount of trimming has taken place. Indiscretions, intimacies, or indecencies, have been cut out. The more modern they are the more this has been done. No one can be expected to go and examine the original manuscripts even if it were always possible, with a view to ferret- ing out the passages omitted. But undoubtedly something has been lost. In some cases a slightly different impression of the diarist, whether better or worse, might be given by a perusal of the manuscript intact. Stars, blanks, initials and dashes are often very annoying and tantalizing to the reader.

Various devices are used by diarists to ensure secrecy. Many Devices

seem to fear the accidental discovery of their volume. Cypher *° ^^^siire • I- c • 1 • 1 1 n ■ ■ secrecy

IS by no means uncommon tor special entries and the use of it is

a clear proof that the diarist is only writing for himself. Pepys

wrote his diary throughout in shorthand, fearing a possible reader.

Byrom did the same, but in his case it was because he was the

inventor of a system of shorthand. Foreign languages are also

used occasionally. Baker introduces a good many French, Latin

and Italian words and phrases, Burrell conceals his remarks about

his family and his diseases in Latin, Dr. Dee and Fynes Clinton

frequently break into Latin, and Dugard's whole diary is written

in Latin. Diarists may not fear posterity, but practically all of

them shrink from the prying eye of their own contemporaries.

Only a few diaries here mentioned were illustrated. Burrell nius- seems to have used little sketches as figures to catch his eye in \^.^^^^ looking back over his accounts ; the illustrations of the child Mary Browne are the chief features of her diary ; General Gordon, in addition to maps and plans, draws one or two amusing carica- tures ; some drawings from her sketch-books are inserted in Queen Victoria's early diary and in the Leaves from the Highlands she makes a few sketches. One of the private manuscript diaries mentioned contained many drawings and caricatures by the author ; and Hannington, the missionary, illustrates African scenes.

Dull and almost colourless records are common enough, even in Dull cases where the diarist has had specially favourable opportunities diaries of seeing interesting people and participating in notable events. He may be embarrassed by the abundance of his material, he may be confused as to what to select, or he may be deficient in powers of observation and description. A sentence of criticism or of

26 ENGLISH DIARIES

frank personal opinion may convey a scene or present a personality better than pages of description. In a diary the writer counts much more than the subject. A prominent London man of society may not give us such a good diary as an obscure provincial schoolmaster. Indeed it may be said that the nineteenth-century social diaries are among the most difficult to read. But in the dullest diary it is well to be on the look-out for sudden indiscretions or betrayals of feeling. Eccen. Diarists are not in themselves eccentric any more than those

tncity ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ j^ggp diaries, although people who are mentally unbal- anced often indulge in the practice. But the unexpected and latent eccentricity which exists in many people may find an outlet in diary writing. Even the most apparently conventional people are sometimes given to strange peculiarities of thought and habit. But Dr. Butty's diary has a degree of sustained eccentricity which is unparalleled. John More shows signs of being rather odd, and the diary of the Ladies of Llangollen is certainly original. Old Many old diaries become interesting merely on account of their

dianes ^^^^ ^g illustrations of manners and customs which have dis- appeared, or as providing archaeological information with regard to places or people. We can appreciate more fully through diary reading the extraordinary mortality among children in the seven- teenth century than we can through the bare recital of statistical facts. We can also gather in the same early period something of the astonishing precocity of the very young. There are remark- able instances of this in Evelyn's diary and also in Shngsby's.

Old diaries, by their references to habits and fashions and through the amusement derived from their archaic language and spelling, give ordinary commonplace events a quality they would not other- wise possess. A scrappy memorandum of the pursuits and pur- chases of a country gentleman in the early seventeenth century is entertaining, whereas the equivalent written at the end of the nineteenth century would be unreadable. The latter, however, in three hundred years' time will derive in its turn new value from its age. Explorers The diaries of explorers are not included in this collection because they come under a different category of writing, A soldier may or may not keep a diary. If he does, even though he deals with little else than military matters, it is the " itch to record " which impels him to write. However technical his diary may be, nevertheless it is a diary very much in the same sense as any other diary. A staff diary only recording official military matters would not be a diary in the sense we are using it here any more

DIARY WRITING 27

than the log-book of a ship. An explorer only uses the daily entry as a convenient means of giving a scientifically exact account of the enterprises on which he is engaged. It is the recognised method of recording scientific observations and collecting data in research. As this class of diary is not included for review, a word may be said about them here because, however scrupulously specialised the entries may be, the personality of the writer still emerges. Three diaries of this description may be mentioned as typical of this class of record : Captain Cook's, Darwin's, and Captain Scott's.

There are two published diaries of Captain Cook's. They are Captain a good deal more than ship's log-books. The first concerns his °° first voyage round the world between 1768 and 1771, and the second his last voyage in 1776 up to his death in 1779. While the entries consist for the most part of nautical observations, he gives very full descriptions of places and interesting details with regard to native races. It is no ordinary dull recital of fact. One feels behind the carefully collected observations an outstanding personality, a man of humane instincts, fine judgment, and skilful management. Very occasionally he allows himself an expression of opinion like the following :

Such are the tempers and disposition of seamen in general that whatever you give them out of the common way — altho' it be ever so much for their good — it will not go down and you will hear nothing but murmurings against the man who first invented it ; but the moment they see their superiors set a value upon it, it becomes the finest stuff in the world and the inventor an honest feUow. Wind easterly.

But the long and often elaborate notes of the great navigator's explorations are part of the literature of scientific research, not a personal diary.

Darwin's Journal of Researches during the voyage of the Darwin Beagle is another instance of a record of scientific research in diary form. But it is no dry technical treatise. By writing quite naturally without omitting the enthusiasms of a young man filled with wonder, devoured by curiosity and absorbed in the work of investigation, he produced a book which brought within the range of the layman the researches of a scientific expert, and thus what might have been a dry and difficult dissertation be- comes coloured with the spirit of adventure and invested with the charm of personality. The Journal covers almost five years, 1831 to 1836, and many quotations might be given to show that not only could he write and describe, but that he combined the aesthetic sensibilities of an artist with the curiosity and analytical

28

ENGLISH DIARIES

concentration of a man of science. The marvels of the forests of South America evoke from him unrestrained enthusiasm. He says in one place : " It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment and devotion which fill and elevate the mind." The most unscientific reader may be carried away by perusing his accounts of adventures with native tribes, and even when he particularises and elaborates his de- scriptions of fauna and flora he uses the simplest language. How- ever, it cannot be called a personal diary, as he notes nothing about himself or his relations with his comrades.

Captain Scott's diary of the Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1912, has attracted more than scientific interest owing to the tragic termination of the expedition so far as he and some of his com- panions were concerned. Although his journal gives all the detailed observations necessary to illustrate the object of the expedition, it is often written in natural and almost colloquial language. The last entry, now famous, is not only personal but of so poignantly a dramatic character that it may be quoted. It is one of the few diary entries written by a man in the immediate face of death. It will be remembered that he and his comrades, though only eleven miles from the depot, were unable to leave their hut owing to the continuous " whirhng drifts " of snow. He scribbled while he still had the strength, no prayers and supplications, no self-blame or recrimination, no posturing philosophy, no melodramatic finale, but the following simple words :

I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of com-se, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.

R. Scott

For God's sake look after our people.

Many other explorers' diaries might be mentioned, but these three

will suffice as examples.

Charac- To return to the more personal diaries which are being con-

ter^tics gidered here, it might be supposed that very busy people do not

ans s ^^^^ diaries. But diary writing does not depend on time, but on

inchnation. It requires a certain effort before the habit can be

acquired, and many people find this effort beyond them, not

exactly from laziness, but from a feeling either that it is not

worth while or that their fives are not sufficiently interesting to

warrant any record being kept. Anyhow, time has nothing to

do with it. A man who may be engrossed in his business or

DIARY WRITING 29

profession will find time even for a daily record, while a man of leisure may not take the trouble to write at all.

Diarists are interested in themselves, they are watching them- selves journeying along the road of life. It may be claimed for them that they are not of a vegetating apathetic disposition. They are awake, alert, and alive to all that concerns them, and this degree of egotism will make the busiest of them find time and opportunity for writing notes.

There are some noticeable differences between the diaries of W°^®^ women and the diaries of men. Women, if they write at all, write a great deal. Listances of women who have kept daily to periodic brief notes, if they exist, must be rare ; the idea of noting regularly insignificant details of daily life does not seem to apj)eal to the female mind. They prefer the memoir or letter form, which gives them more scope. Women are sometimes prolific letter writers. This may prevent them from expanding them- selves in a diary. But if their desire for self-expression were deprived of this outlet it is not unlikely it would overflow into the pages of a diary. Lady Mary Coke tried to combine the two, \\'ith the result that she cannot be said to have been successful in either. Practically all the diaries of women mentioned in these volumes are the diaries of well-known and more or less eminent women, with the exception of IVIrs. Browne's entertaining little record, whereas it has been easy to collect the diaries of many absolutely unknown men.

Generally speaking, women seem to be more cautious and less prone to give themselves away. The examples discovered of English women diarists show that they are less morbid and introspective and fonder of objective narrative. Women often excel in the particular line they set themselves. Their powers of narrative are sometimes specially good. The diaries of Fanny Kemble and Lady Nugent are both entertaining, though com- paratively little known. Celia Fiennes stands by herself in the seventeenth century, and Lady Cowper amongst others in the eighteenth centm-y, as women whose distinctive characters are displayed by their spontaneous writing. Queen Victoria must be judged more by the early diaries and by the knowledge that many volumes of a similar character exist than by the Leaves from the Highlands. The women social diarists, hke the men, are less interesting. Rapture, enthusiasm, and we must say, too, gush, abound in some women's diaries. Indeed Fanny Burney her- self, who may be claimed by many as the best English woman diarist, is by no means immune from criticism on this score.

80 ENGLISH DIARIES

For many reasons we should be inclined to give the palm among women to Caroline Fox. The comparatively small number of female diarists that are discoverable may be taken as an in- dication, not so much that women were formerly less addicted to diary ■\\Titing than men, but that women's education in the past was largely neglected. As the centuries pass, however, the number of women diarists seems to increase, and in the nine- teenth century there were undoubtedly a large number, although many of these diaries are not available. Objective There are two ways of estimating a diary : according to the and sub- jjofht it throws on the incidents recorded, or the light it throws

16ClJlV©

diaries on the character of the writer. Most diaries have been examined and judged from the former point of view; footnotes, ampli- fications and even new material for history have been discovered in old diaries. New facts and incidents have been found in the lives of well-known people, and fresh revelations have been made with regard to their characters. Domestic details, expressions of private feelings, and all the more intimate particulars are dis- missed as neghgible. It may often be found in the printed editions of diaries that editors extract only those portions which deal with events of public, historic or local importance, and a note will be found declaring that the rest is omitted because it was only of a private character. Many a diary has been emas- culated in this way. If, however, we examine diaries from the subjective point of view of the diarist, the so-called private part becomes every bit as important as the rest. Every detail helps to acquaint us with the author, his method of writing, his manner of living, his hopes and aspirations and his inmost thoughts. In the following review of diaries the human side rather than the historical side, the psychological interest rather than the ob- jective interest, is dwelt upon. There are several cases in which the events described overshadow other considerations, and the author can only be reached through his style and comments. But in many other cases the events are of little consequence, and we therefore get a clearer view of the diarist. Should It may be asked whether reading diaries not intended for pub-

private lication is not prying into private affairs, spying out chambers be^read ? ^^ *^^ ^^^ ^^ have no business to enter, peeping behind the curtain, or, as Lord Morley puts it, " violating the sanctuary." Are we justified in exposing to the public eye intimate reve- lations and secret thoughts and confidences jotted down in un- guarded moments of self-expansion ? Is nothing to be held sacred and inviolable ? Are the last garments which conceal

DIARY WRITING 31

nakedness to be torn off by our eagerness to analyse and dissect beings who have passed away and therefore cannot protest ? Whatever may be the reply to these questions from the ethical point of view, scruples and misgivings come too late now. The thing has been done. Private diaries not intended for publica- tion and others about which there is doubt have been unearthed, deciphered, printed and published. If the writers did not wish this they should have taken precautions and left injunctions for the destruction of their diaries. Their wishes would have been respected. There are several known instances where "locked books ' and diaries were kept and instructions left for their destruction. But in no instance in the diaries considered in this volume was there any such instruction. On the contrary, we are disposed to thinkthattheabsenceof any specific injunction implied on the part of the diarist a perhaps imexpressed but nevertheless not unabsent expectation that what he or she wrote might one day be read.

Anyhow we are the gainers. In no case do we think less of a diarist for what he wrote down, though we may be surprised at his candour. We ourselves are all guilty of unprintable and unpublishable feehngs, and this ought to prevent us from con- demning anyone whose feelings of this sort have found their way on to a printed page not at his own instigation.

In every case a diary amplifies what we know of its writer, Diarista if we know anything at all. In some cases a new and different, explain possibly a less favourable, Hght is thrown on the character of the g^i^g diarist. Windham and Manning are examples of this. The former is almost unrecognisable when the self which is revealed is compared with the man as he was known. In the latter the inner workings of a complex nature which we catch sight of alter the general estimate of him that was accepted for pubhc con- sumption. Some deplore such diary revelations as detracting from the high opinion of the figures of romance which history from outside presents. But surely it is more interesting to know the real man. If the discovery of their faults and weaknesses makes us lower their pedestals, anyhow we are taking them out of the realm of romance into the realm of reality, and our opinion need not be lowered. We get nearer to them by means of their own explanation, and we need only reflect that other great heroes who are still aloft would be foimd to be just as faulty had we the same opportunity of scrutinising them through the pages of a full diary.

Diarists cannot help explaining themselves — ^unintentionally

32 ENGLISH DIARIES

perhaps and incompletely. Nevertheless an explanation is there. Not only to the general public in the case of published diaries may this be important, but in the case of private and unpublished diaries the closer knowledge may prove to be of considerable consequence. For instance, a young man who lost his father and had known very little about him, one day came across his father's diary and read it. In a letter to his uncle he said : " I was surprised how little I knew him really and what a fine character he must have had at the bottom. It gave me a feeling of affection for him that I had never had before. I think I under- : stand his difficulties and peculiar mentality. I could sympathise

; with him." So intimate a revelation would not have been possible

even through letters. Knowledge of this kind goes very far to dispel misunderstandings and erroneous judgments, because it produces the most valuable of all relationships, which is sympathy. Reflec- In diaries human nature— our own nature — is revealed to us

huSian ^^ ^ ^^y unattainable in any other form of writing. The hnea- natSre ments of character penetrate freely. We recognise the joys, the little vanities, the disappointments, the exaggerated ambitions, the broken resolutions. We can enter into the tri\aal pleasures and petty miseries of daily life — ^the rainy day, the blunt razor, the new suit, the domestic quarrel, the bad night, the twinge of toothache, the fall from a horse, the newly purchased book, the good meal, the over-sharp criticism, the irritating relation, the child's maladies, the exasperating servant. We know them all. We have experienced many of them ourselves. Through these casual notes we are brought into a sort of familiar relationship and fellow-feeling with the writer which philosophic discourses N or even collected correspondence cannot produce in quite the same way. We find in them a reahty and a life which the more artistic and skilful compositions of fiction cannot reach. The diarist is endeared to us for the strongest of all possible reasons — that he is so like us. His diary may be fatuous, it may be ridi- culous, it may be insignificant, it may be dull, but if he is not 5 furbishing up a memoir for pubhc consumption it will, with aU

I its defects, be human. It is this distinctive humanity which

I differentiates diary writing from other forms of literature.

Elements There may be some difficulty in determining what constitutes necessary ^ g^^^j diary — good that is to say from the point of \dew of a reader good who is a stranger. It may fulfil the intention of the writer, and diary be to him or her a useful book of reference, or give information to the family. But we must look at it from the point of view

DIARY WRITING 33

of the general reader. Regularity and fulness are not sufficient by themselves. Instances will be given of regular diaries ex- tending over long periods which are neither particularly edifying nor entertaining. There are good and bad diaries which are long and regular ; there are good and bad diaries which are short and scrappy. Entries made on the day have an unquestionable advantage over entries made as summaries of a period after delay and reflection. The entry made on the day has the pecuhar freshness, the spontaneous note of individuahty which cannot be secured otherwise. It is the snapshot, rough, unpremeditated —ill-composed and out of focus perhaps— but catching the fleet- ing expression which the carefully arranged and more finished studio photograph misses. But the imprint of a passing impres- sion fades very rapidly from the sensitive plate of our memory. CaroHne Fox, resuming her journal after an illness, writes : " I write all tliis now because my feehngs are already fading into commonplace, and I would fain fix some little scrap of my ex- perience." Even the writer with little natural power of literary expression may scribble down a phrase at the moment which no amount of studied ingenuity on the part of a literary author could equal. This spontaneity is a form of sincerity which may be claimed as the one indispensable quality for a good diary. If too the writer has not pubHcation definitely in view ; if, so far as it is possible, he is just talking to himself, this spontaneity will be all the more evident. This in itself makes the style— not the balanced phrasing of a literary style, but the mot juste forced on the diarist by his close proximity to the incident or impression he records. Powers of observation would seem to be an indis- pensable part of the equipment of a good diarist, and by no means all diarists have those powers even though they may have good memories, which is quite another thing. Perception, which is the faculty of detaching the significant from the things observed, is a rare talent. The diarist who possesses it will never fail to keep alert a reader of his record.

Egotism improves a diary. But the egotist must have some method or else he will not keep it up. Haydon kept it up to the end. Byron, otherwise an admirable diary-writer, could not persist for more than a few months. The writer who is more concerned with what he is recording than with himself or than with his opinion and attitude towards his subject may be a superior person, but he is unlikely to be a good diarist. It would be going too far to say that the good quahty of a diary is in inverse ratio to the importance of the events related. But it is certainly true 3

34

ENGLISH DIARIES

Miscon- ception as to capacity for

keeping a diary

Triviali- ties

that the diarist who sets himself the task of chronichng important public affairs must either be a literary artist, or must have a specially favourable point of vantage as an observer, if he is going to attract attention to his record. Some succeed, but many more fail.

" You ought to keep a diary " is a remark which may be often heard addressed to people who live within the range of great events and mix with the high and mighty. " I do not keep a diary " is also a common reply of people who go on to explain that they do not meet interesting people or Hve within the orbit of public affairs. Both these remarks show an entirely wrong conception of diary -wTiting. Roughly speaking, the majority of diaries of eminent people or participants in occurrences of historical moment are less good than the diaries of those who live out of the beaten track in comparative obscurity. It is the life inside and the personality of the writer, not the circumstances outside, which help to give the particular quality to a diary which cannot be found in other methods of writing. The world of events is better dealt \\ith by history and memoirs, but the private and inner Ufe can only be occasionally snatched in its vital reahty by the observant or introspective writer of a daily record who by the advantage of an inner view of his subject can perhaps commit to paper an exact reflection of human ex- perience. And even without being introspective or self-analytical, the writer of a record of quiet days among unknown people can give an atmosphere to his story which the bewildered recorder of great proceedings may be unable to impart to his. The great fallacy that the quality of a diary depends on the circumstances in which a person is placed will be dispelled by a perusal of the extracts given in these pages.

Both in the larger and in the minor diaries trivialities seem at times to count more than the weightier events. We prefer Pepys when he is singing with Mercer in the coach while his wife is shopping rather than when he is telling us about the exploits of the navy ; we pause longer over Sir Simonds d'Ewes' quarrels with Mr. Danford than over his poUtical dissertations ; Shngsby is interesting on the Ci\'il War, but one cannot help specially sympathising with him in his embarrassment with the variety of doctors who attend his wife. General Dyott and his inconvenient cousin Miss Bakewell amuse us, while his intercourse with his " uncommonly gracious " royal acquaintances palls. Newcombe's piety may be impressive, but his failure to leave off smoking is a relief. Elias Ashmole was a great antiquary, but we are in-

DIARY WRITING 35

terested to know that he feU ill from drinking water after venison. Lady Nugent gives a good description of Jamaica, but we are also amused to know that her husband's predecessor had dirty nails. "^

All this does not mean that diary readers are frivolous-minded but that diary writers are at their best when they are just scrib- bhng down with effortless frankness the httle incidents which they are honest enough to record as having caught their attention at the moment : httle incidents which may indeed be of greater personal importance to them than their participations in the larger concerns, the great flow of pubhc life, or the profound speculations on rehgion in which individual contributions must at most be very insignificant.

And there is this further consideration: political, court, Public military and diplomatic incidents fade very quickly and become ^^ents stale ; unless they are related by a man of consequence who speaks Stat« authoritatively we are not impressed. Raikes's gossip about ?pisodL Fans under Loms Phihppe was no doubt quite amusing to read a year or two after he wrote, but his diary wiU find very few readers to-day. Personal episodes and individual reflections, on the other hand, retain their freshness and appeal to us just as much after the passage of centuries. The case of Wilberforce IS an example in which it is the personal rather than the business and social entnes that give the diary special value. We are looking for the human being— that is the truth of it— not the sovereign, the bishop, the general, the author, but the man and woman ; and in their diaries they can give us the best chance of nndmg them.

It may be said then that daily writing, powers of observation Composi- and of perception, honesty so far as it is possible, a fair quantum tion of a ot egotism, no immediate thought of pubhcation, no pretentious f,^^ atbtudmismg and no hesitation to put down the things that ^ ruffle and the things that please in the twelve hours that have passed— a certain amount of recklessness in fact— wiU help to make a good diary. If these elements are combined with the pen of a Pepys, a Fielding, a Fanny Burney, a Byron, a Haydon, or a Barbelhon, the result wiU be an arresting human document. And even when there can be no claim to special h'^.^ary talent as m such cases as Teonge, Baker, Gale, Strother, Lady Nugent etc an intimate msight into human character is provided which could not be gained in any other way. The diary which fulfils ail the above conditions and which may without dispute be accorded the highest place among Enghsh diaries is undoubtedly

36 ENGLISH DIARIES

that of Pepys. It is dealt with in its place with as much fulness as space will allow, although insufficiently to bring all its merits to light. Much has been written about Pepys, and the diary is accessible in many editions, so that it has not been thought neces- sary to give him in these pages the larger proportion of attention which is his due.

But while the elements which seem to make a good diary can be enumerated, it is really useless to lay down rules and regula- tions or prescriptions for diary writing. For a diary may be found to contravene most of them and yet be very readable. If a man sets out to conform to rules or to adopt a style which is not absolutely natural to him, if he writes with intention and be- comes self-conscious about his writing, it will mean that he has his eye on a possible reader : the thought of eventual publication will obtrude and pure spontaneity will inevitably vanish. The only safe advice is — follow no rule, write as you like. The only rule is that there is no rule. Indeed, for some almost inexplicable reason one diary may absorb a reader to the extent of his not wanting to miss a single entry ; while in another he may find difficulty in reading two consecutive pages. It is not the style or the subject, it is the personality behind which counts, and that personahty must be free, without intention and without premeditation, to make use of whatever form or method it desires. The personality may strike one as pleasant or unpleasant ; this in no way affects the quahty of the diary. Long Fulness and length, that is to say long continuance, are no

dianes particular assets. It might be interesting to know which is the longest English diary. But without an examination of all the manuscripts there is no means of deciding the question. In some cases parts of a manuscript are missing ; and length of time does not necessarily indicate length of diary. However, the honour would probably fall to one of the following : Greville (40 years), Crabb Robinson (56 years), Thoresby (57 years), Haydon (60 years), Wesley (66 years), Queen Victoria (68 years), or Egmont, who only wrote for about 18 years, but at immense length. CriticiBm There may be superior persons who condemn diaries as frivo- writinT ^^^^ ^^^ negligible unless they deal with historical incidents. People who attach more importance to the actual than to the human may agree. But every event, every historical fact, is composed in its essence of purely human elements. Anjrthing, therefore, which contributes to a knowledge of humanity, not only prominent humanity, but humble humanity, ought not

writing

DIARY WRITING 37

to be ignored by historians, or indeed by philosophers and psychologists.

Apart from this wholesale condemnation of the practice it maybe questionable whether diary writing, or anyhow some forms of it, is not rather a snare, an encouragement to the revolving of wheels that do not bite. Curiously enough the most uncom- promising condemnation of it comes from one of the most cele- brated diarists. Amiel writes : " A private journal is a friend to idleness. It frees us from the necessity of looking all round a subject, it puts up with every kind of repetition, it accom- panies all the caprices and meandering of inner hfe and proposes to itself no definite end ... a journal takes the place of a confidant that is a friend or wife, it becomes a substitute for production, it is a grief-cheating device, a mode of escape and withdrawal. But though it takes the place of everything, properly speaking it represents nothing at all."

Few people dream of attempting to keep the sort of diary which Amiel continued to keep in spite of this outburst. Whatever may be the effect on diarists their productions anyhow supply us with a form of writing we should be very sorry to be deprived of.

History and literature are apt to represent people more as Distino- actors than human beings. They become figures of romance ^^^^ rather outside the human range. But we find ourselves drawn ^^^*'^^ to people at once when we discover they are just hke ourselves and did actually by their own testimony given in their own words— and not in the great language of history— lose their tem- per, enjoy their dinner, quarrel with their famihes, catch cold, be elated by worldly joys, and dejected by the perplexities of human existence. Sovereigns, statesmen, saints, poets, generals and scholars are brought down to our own level, and as Moore says, " we rejoice in the discovery so consohng to human pride that even the mightiest in their moments of ease and weakness resemble ourselves."

It must be admitted that the diary form of writing is awkward The diary and not always easy to read. As a vehicle for conveying precise ^°"" information it is cumbrous and diffuse. Repetitions, abbrevia- tions, hsts of names of people, bald registering of the dates of inovements, of births and deaths, the occasional dropping and picking up of threads, unnecessary prohxity, puzzhng laconism, and Uttle mysteries of which there is no explanation, are constant obstacles to the easy run which a reader wants. There is indeed no form, no order, no attempt at construction— often no begin-

38 ENGLISH DIARIES

ning, no culmination, and only a broken ending. In rare cases only is there any attempt at literary style or finish. The more or less complete diaries are a minority, and Haydon's last entry is unique. For the most part the diaries are fragmentary — shreds torn from a bit of cloth which itself was not cut or trimmed into shape. It may be that these drawbacks prevent diaries from being popular reading. Yet the appearance of a contemporary diary always has a certain succes de scandals. The diary form is often imitated in fiction and some sham diaries have had a con- siderable vogue : notably the diary of Lady Willoughby, a fictitious seventeenth-century diary which appeared in the early nineteenth century, the very successful and not entirely fictitious Pages from a Private Diary, which was published not long ago, and The Diary of a Nobody, which has become almost a classic. The broken diary form of periodic dated entries has been adopted in notebooks which are not in themselves diaries, such for instance as Samuel Butler's notebooks and Jowett's memoranda. Its adoption is an indication of spontaneity and for the noting of personal impressions and reflections of the moment can be very effective. Nevertheless the diary form seems more suitable for occasional than consecutive reading. Biographers meet the difficulty by taking bits of diary as illustrations and fitting them in here and there to complete the life story. But most diarists have not acquired fame enough to justify their biographies being written at all. In these cases the fragmentary entries are all we have ; and if the reluctance to read the clumsy little notes can be overcome, it is astonishing how much human interest may be discovered in them, and how distinctly one is able to form an estimate of the character of the writer. They also have the ad- vantage that there has been no thought of publication. Variety To collect together people as diarists is no arbitrary grouping ®"^ any more than to collect poets or dramatists. All who write

diaries take themselves more or less seriously, and have in com- mon a desire to register and record the incidents connected with their own lives and sometimes to note thoughts and opinions. Whether it be from habit, egotism, vanity, or self-discipline, they are by this practice connected together by a very tangible link. It is interesting therefore to note the variety that exists within this classification ; and, more than variety, the astonishing contrasts. Take, for instance, two lifelong and regular diarists, Haydon and Wesley, both vain and both religious. Different as were the careers of the unsuccessful artist and the eminently successful divine, the dramatic and highly coloured narrative

DIARY WRITING 39

of the one and the methodical register of the other form an even greater contrast. Or take Captain Lloyd, who was killed in the Boer War, and Arthur Graeme West, who was killed in the Great War, both British officers, the official records of whose careers would not be found to be very different, both the product of more or less the same age, and the same system of education. The bald, almost professional notes of the one and the elaborate self-analysis of the other present perhaps as great a contrast as any two diaries in the collection. Read General Dyott on the Florentine gallery, and then turn to a page of J. A. Symonds on the same subject, and they were both of them lifelong diarists. Elizabeth Fry and Frances Lady Shelley were T\Titing their diaries at the same time, but their outlook on life could hardly have been more divergent. George Ehot, a famous novelist, gives us very dry notes and rather depressing reflections ; Lady Charlotte Bury, a very obscure novelist, fills her pages with sentimental rapture and gossip. Henry Newcombe and Henry Teonge lived about the same time in the seventeenth century and both Avere ministers of religion. Newcombe's severe religious self-discipline and pious phraseology has little resemblance to Teonge's free and easy enjoyment of life expressed in language that has to be expurgated. A famous early nineteenth-century huntsman and a parlia- mentary visitor for the destruction of Church ornaments under the Commonwealth both keep a diary for the exclusive record of their professional work. The Rev. Henry Martyn keeps the diary of a rigid and penitent ascetic ; the Rev. W. S. Millar keeps a hunting diary. We gather into the same fold Gladstone, the great statesman concerned with events of high national im- port, and Turner, the storekeeper, who recounts his village orgies ; we can have side by side the royal gossip of a lady-in- waiting and the metaphysical introspection of a museum assistant, the experiences of a not very high-minded village schoolmaster naturally told, and the scholarly reflections of an Eton master rather sententiously expressed ; and no two individuals could be further removed from one another in character, temperament, and experience than our two monarch diarists.

Another sort of contrast is afforded by diaries which deal with the same subject, not because of the difference in the style, method, or personality of the writers, but because of the widely separated periods in which they lived. The account of warfare given by Coningsby, the officer who accompanied an expeditionary force to France in the days of Queen Elizabeth, compared with the account of warfare given by Gordon-Lennox, who accompanied

40 ENGLISH DIARIES

the expeditionary force to France in 1914, may give food for reflection to those who beheve in " the progress of civihsation." Differ- Whether by contrast or by resemblance diaries show us that

disposi*- people of the same class, age, and even profession, may differ tion in fundamentally in their outlook on life, and also that although diarists their lot may be cast in very different spheres and although they same pro- ^^^Y live separated by centuries, they may yet have in common fession just that degree of self-consciousness and vanity which impels

them to watch and note their daily experiences. ^^*"®^ No conjecture can be made of what proportion of educated

people have kept diaries, on account of the large number which must have been destroyed. In the days of the monasteries it is not improbable that some of those who led the contemplative life noted with regularity the thoughts and impressions which occurred to them in the routine of the cloister. Yet only the Chronicle of Jocehn of Brakelond, which is not a diary, brings us into any close relation with monastic life. This is not svu*- prising when we know how the hbraries and archives of abbeys and monasteries were treated at the dissolution. The wholesale destruction was carried out on a grand scale, although grocers may have rescued a few sheets for their parcels. Old papers in the lumber rooms of country houses were regarded as rubbish till comparatively recent years, and it is only in exceptional cases that much has been preserved. Even now people are apt to destroy the diaries of their grandparents, under the impression that they can be of no interest as they only deal with domestic incidents of obscure hves.

Nevertheless, unknown manuscript diaries may be peppered about the country in numbers which we cannot guess at. Their whereabouts is beyond the reach of the antiquary and cata- logue maker and we have here to rest satisfied with the very few examples of these private manuscripts which have come within range. Perhaps these diaries still under lock and key, some not having yet the value given by antiquity, others not considered worth printing, form the majority of existing diaries. There is no means of knowing. But taking these into account, as well as a considerable number which must have been destroyed along with letters, accounts, deeds, and other manuscript records, it may safely be asserted that a comparatively small minority of people have been and are now diarists. Diarists a An inquiry with regard to diary keeping made of a hundred ™inon y gj^jj^^tg^j people chosen at random has produced the following result.

DIARY WRITING 41

The hundred consisted of fifty-six males and forty-four females, sixty-five of them over 30, thirty-five under 30.

Twenty-four (twelve males and twelve females) keep diaries. Seventy- six (forty-four males and thirty-two females) do not keep diaries. Those who do not keep diaries include twenty-six (eleven males and fifteen females) who either in their childhood or on a special occasion have kept diaries which have been dis- continued.

The twenty-four diarists included sixteen persons over 30 ; eight under. The seventy-six non-diarists forty-nine over 30 ; twenty-seven under.

The number is too small to serve as a basis for any enlightening deductions, but it is probably fairly representative. Something like 20 to 25 per cent, of educated people may be reckoned as keeping diaries of some sort. In the table females show pro- portionately a shght preponderance over males. This may be true now, though in the earher centuries they were undoubtedly in a small minority. The figures do not seem to show that the younger generation are either more or less inclined to keep diaries than the elder. There may be a tendency to consider that diary writing is an occupation for the leisured class. But as we have already pointed out, spare time has nothing whatever to do with it. What is true is that owing to a defective or rather non- existent educational system in the past the great mass of the people were either prevented from being able to write at all or found writing a considerable effort. Once writing becomes as easy for one person as another and real education spreads over the whole community the number of diarists will increase actually in numbers ; but proportionately, owing to diary writing being a matter of temperament, the percentage is hkely to remain about the same.

The diaries collected here have been arranged more or less in Arrange- chronological order. Their classification according to subject Maries' or the profession of the writer would have been too awkward reviewed and many could not have been fitted into any particular category. The method of detaching each one separately appeared to be the best way of illustrating their individual characteristics. Ex- tracts of special passages often give a good idea of the diarist and his method and opinions, but there are many cases where something is lost because a still fuller revelation of character and circumstances would certainly be gained by the consecutive reading of daily entries even though many of them might be, com- paratively speaking, dull. PecuMarities and characteristics can

42 ENGLISH DIARIES

be illustrated by extracts, but the perusal of the whole diary and if possible the handling of the original manuscript would assist very much the reahsation of the actual atmosphere.

Some one hundred and twenty diaries are reviewed and a score or so of others have been examined. While no doubt the Friends' Library and the United Service Institution contain the manu- scripts of some others, there is good reason to beheve that the collection of another hundred diaries would be attended with difficulty %vithout access to the archives of country houses or without the key of the cupboards where old family papers are reposing on dusty shelves. Some doubt may be expressed as to whether the right proportion of notice has been given to all the various and widely differing diaries in the collection. The un- questionable importance of the subjects dealt with in some of them might seem to warrant their fuller treatment. Byron did not write for more than a few months and perhaps ought hardly to be called a diarist, but his method and matter seem to justify longer quotations being made from his record than from far fuller and more regular diaries. But throughout, not the subject, but the quaUty of the diaries is the matter under consideration. The decision as to their relative value becomes therefore a matter of opinion which while it may seem arbitrary can best be arrived at by a perusal of them all.

Surveying the series from Edward VI to Barbellion, we can note the growth of elaboration, the expansion of more philosophic self-analysis and greater sophistication. But it would be very far from true to say that our later diaries are superior to our earlier ones. Diary In conclusion it may be assumed with general agreement that

^ul^b ^^^ writing is a practice that should be encouraged. People encoiar- need only consult their own convenience and mood, they need obey aged no rules, they may follow their own inclination to write regu- larly, irregularly, fully, or briefly. They may publish or not as they wish. But let them reahse that no special talent, and more particularly no high position or favoxirable circumstance, will necessarily make their diary important or interesting. In fact, its interest or importance is not a matter that need concern them. They may or may not find it useful for reference, but let them never think that the personal jottings of any human being are entirely futile. ' We may go so far as to deplore that there are not more diaries in

existence. In spite of their necessary hmitations, their inaccuracies and their bias, they would add considerably to the sum total of

DIARY WRITING 43

iiuman knowledge. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the practice of diary writing was undoubtedly very much favoured, although many of the diaries of that period have not yet emerged from their cupboards. The appearance of Marie Bashldrtseff' s journal encouraged many people to make a similar attempt. In earlier and more leisurely days, too, when people wi-ote long letters and authors rewrote and rewrote their books, opportunity was found for diary writing. In the more mechanical age in which we now live excessive pressure caused by the mania for movement and the frenzied eagerness for varied sensations make accomphsh- ment of every sort more difficult, and render moments for re- flection much more rare. People are not busier, but they hear and see too much and they are more quickly tired, and it may be surmised that apart from diaries produced by the war, there are rather fewer diarists relatively speaking. The lack of reticence ■on the part of the younger generation may be a defect, but if they wrote diaries it would become a quality. It is to be feared, how- ever, that their egotism takes a cruder and more external form.

If nevertheless there are indeed more diary writers to-day it will be an advantage for posterity. Notwithstanding all the immense store of facts we are compihng by means of newspapers, books, registers and official records with regard to the history of our own times, the privately written comments of an individual spontaneously scribbled and so reproducing the mood, the atmo- sphere, and, so to speak^ the particular aroma of the moment, are priceless and can be regarded as the spice of history. Diaries link up the reader of to-day with the writer of the past with intimate threads and exhibit as nothing else can the unbroken consecutive flow of human endeavour, failure and hope.

LIST OF DIARIES

ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
Edward VI . .	King .	1549-1552	Literary Remains of Edward VI, ed. by J. G. Nichols, 1857. Clarendon Histori- cal Reprints, 1884	55
Henry Machyn .	Undertaker .	1550-1563	Camden Society, vol. 42	58
Dr. John Dee .	Astrologer and	1554^1601	Camden Society,
	mathematician		vol. 19	61
Sir Francis	Statesman	1570-1583	Camden Miscellanies,
Walsingham			1871	66
Sir Thomas	Soldier	•1591	Camden Miscellanies,
Coning sby			1847	68

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Sir Simonds	Barrister, Mem-	1619-1636	Autobiography of Sir
d'Ewes	ber of Parlia- ment and an-		Simonds d'Ewes, ed. by J. 0. HaUi-
	tiquary		weU, 1845	71
Sir Henry	Member of Par-	1638-1648	The Diary of Sir
Slingsby	Uament and soldier		Henry Slingsby, ed. by the Rev. D. Parsons, 1836	76
Samuel Pepys .	Clerk of the Acts, Clerk of	1660-1669	Pepys' Diary, ed. by H. B. Wheatley.
y	the Privy Seal		Samuel Pepys, by
	and Secretary to the Ad-		Percy Lubbock, 1909, R. L. Steven-
	miralty		son's essay, etc.	82
John Evelyn .	Country gentle- man and author	1640-1706	The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. by Austin Dobson, 1906, 3 vols.	96
Henry Teonge .	Naval chaplain	1675-1676	Teonge' s Dia/ry,
		1678-1679	1826	107

45

46	ENGLISH DIARIES
	Minor Diaries
Name of Diarist.	Occupation,	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
John	Barrister .	1602-1603	Camden Society,
Manningham			1868, Brit. Mus. Harleian MS. 5353	112
Elias Ashmole .	Antiquary .	1641-1687	Diary and Letters of Elias AshTnole,nn	114
John Rouse . ,	Clergyman.	1625-1642	Camden Society, 66	11&
Sir William	Coiintry gentle-	1634	Surtees Society, vol.
Brereton	man and tra- veller -		124	lis
John Aston .	Courtier	1639	Surtees Society, vol. 118	119
William Dowsing	Iconoclast .	1643-1644	The Journal of Wil- liam, Dowsing, 1st Ed. 1786, 2nd Ed. 1818	120
Adam Eyre . .	Country gentle-	1646-1648	Surtees Society, vol.
	man		65	122
Giles Moore .	Clergyman.	1653-1679	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collections, vol. I	125
Henry	Presbyterian	1661-1663	Cheetham Society,
Newcombe	minister		vol. XVIII	128
Oliver Heywood .	Nonconformist divine	166&-1702	Oliver Heywood's Diaries, ed. by J. Horsfall Turner, 4 vols., 1881	131
Ralph Thoresby.	Antiquary .	1667-1724	Diary of Ralph Thoresby, ed. by Jos. Hunter, 2 vols., 1830	134
Sir Walter	Country gentle-	1670-1718	Surtees Society, vol.
Calverley	man		77	136
Dr. Edward Lake	Chaplain and	1677-1678	Camden Miscellanies,
	archdeacon		vol. I	138
Abraham de la	Clergyman and	1680-1704	Surtees Society, 1870
Pryme	antiquary			140
Timothy Burrell	Barrister .	1686-1717	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collect., vol. Ill	142
Thomas	Bishop	1686-1687	Camden Society,
Cartwright			vol. 22	144
John More .	Clergyman . • .	1694-1700	Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28,041	147
Celia Fiennes .		1695-1697	Throtigh England on a Sidesaddle in the Time of William and Mary, 1888	148
T. Rugge . . ) N. Luttrell . j	Annalists .	1659-1724	Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 10,116 and 10,447	152

LIST OF DIARIES

47

Short Notices

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
William		1608-1633	Historical Manu-
Ayshcombe			scripts Commis- sion, Report 10, Appendix VI	153
T. Dugard . .	Clergyman	1632-1643	Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23,146	154
John Manners,	Courtier	1639	Historical Manu-
Earl of Rutland			scripts Commis- sion, Report 12, Appendix IV	154
Jacob Bee	Tradesman	1681-1706	Surtees Society, vol. 118	154
Richard Stapley .	Country gentle-	1682-1710	Sussex Archaeological
	man		Collections, vol. II	155
John Bufton . .		1699	Essex Archaeological Transactions, vol. I	155

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

John Wesley

Viscount Percival, Earl of Egmont

Fanny Bumey (Madame d'Arblay)

Williami Windham

Divine

Member of Par- liament

1725-1791

1728-1733

NoveUst

Statesman

1768-1819

1784-1810

The Journal of John Wesley, Standard Edn., 8 vols., 1910, JohnWesley's Jour- nal, abridged ; pref . by A. Birrell

Diary of Viscount Percival, Earl of Egmont, Historical Manuscripts Com- mission, Vol. I, 1920

Early Diaries of Frances Bumey, 2 vols., 1889. Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, ed. by Austin Dob- son, 1904

The Diary of William Windham, ed. by Mrs. Baring, 1866

156

164

171

184

48

ENGLISH DIARIES

Minor Diaries

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
Mary, Countess	Lady in waiting	1714-1720	Diary oj Mary,
Cowper			Countess Cowper, 1804	193
Thomas Marchant	Yeoman farmer	1714-1728	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collection, vol. XXV	196
John Thomlinson	Clergyman	1717-1722	Surtees Society, vol. 118	197
John Byrom .	Poet and theo- logian	1722-1744	Cheetham Society, vols. XXXII, XXXIV, XL and XLIV	200
Elizabeth Byrom	—	1745-1746	Cheetham Society, vol. XLIV	203
John Hobson	Country gentle- man	1725-1734	Surtees Society, vol. 65	205
Walter Gale . .	Schoolmaster .	1749-1759	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collections, vol. IX	206
George Bubb	Member of Par-	1749-1761	The Diary of G.
Dodington	liament		Bubb Dodington, ed.
^ (Lord			by Henry P.
Melcombe)			Wyndham, 1785	208
John Baker . .	Solicitor .	1750-1779	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collections, vol. LII. MS. at New- buildings, Sussex	212
John Rutty	Doctor	1753-1774	A Spiritual Diary, by John Rutty, M.D., 2 vols., 1776	215
Mrs. Browne		1754-1757	Original MS. in the possession of Mr. S. A. Covu-tauld	220
Henry Fielding .	NoveUst	1754	The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon by H. Fielding, ed. by Austin Dobson, 1892	224
Thomas Turner	Tradesman	1754-1765	Sussex Archaeologi- cal Collections, vol. XI	227
John Dawson	Captain of	1761	Surtees Society, vol.
	militia		124	231
Lady Mary Coke		1766-1791	The Journal of Lady Mary Coke, 5 vols., privately printed	233

LIST OF DIARIES

Minor Diaries — continued.

Name of Diarist.

Occupation.

James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury

Diplomatist

Date of Diary.

Source.

1767-1820

Thomas Gray . Poet

Strother

The Ladies of Llangollen

Shop assistant

1769

1784-1785

1785-1788

Elizabeth, Lady Holland

Thomas Green

Critic

1701-1811

1796-1811

Sir George Rooke Peter Oliver . . Thomas Gyll Mrs. Powys . .

Short Notices

1700-1703 1781-1821 1748-1778 1756-1808

Admiral

Doctor

Lawyer and antiquary

Diaries and Corre- spondence of the 1st Earl of Mahnes- hury, ed. by his grandson, 4 vols., 1844

Tour in the Lake District. Works of Thomas Gray, ed. by E. Gosse, vol. I, 1884

Strother' s Diary, ed. by Csesar Caine, Brit. Mus. Eg. 2479

Lady Eleanor But- ler's Diary, original MS. in the posses- sion of the Marquis of Ormonde. The Swan and Her Friends, by E. V. Lucas, Chap. XIII

The Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, ed. by the Earl of Ilchester, 2 vols., 1909 The Diary of a Lover of Literature, 1803, and Gentleman's Magazine, 1834- 1838

Navy Records

Societj^ 1897 Brit. Museum Eg.

MS. 2674 Surtees Society, vol.

118 Passages from the

Diaries of Mrs.

Powys, ed. by

Emily Climenson,

1899

49

Page.

234

236

237

241

246

249

251

252 252

252

50

ENGLISH DIARIES

NINETEENTH CENTURY

Name of Diarist.

B. R. Haydon .

Lord Byron . Charles Greville

William Cobbett Victoria . . .

Caroline Fox

General Gordon.

Occupation.

Painter

Poet

aerk of Council

the

Politician author

Queen .

and

Soldier

Date of Diary.

1786-1846

1813-1814

1816

1821 1814-1860

1821-1832

1832-1840

1848-1882

1834-1871

1884

Source.

General Dyott

Frances, Lady Shelley

Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester

Soldier

Minor Diaries

1781-1845

Speaker of the House of Com- mons

1787-1813

1795-1829

Life of B. R. Hay- don, ed. by Tom Taylor, 3 vols., 1853

Life of Byron, by Tom Moore, 1832

The Greville Me- moirs, ed. by H. Reeve, 8 vols., 1875, 1885, 1887. Miscellanies of the Philobiblion So- ciety, IX, 1865

Cobbett' 8 Rural Rides, ed. by Pitt Cobbett, 1893

The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, ed. by Viscount Esher, 1912. Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the High- lands, 1862. More Leaves, 1883

Journals and Letters of Caroline Fox, ed. by H. N. Pym, 1882

Journals of General Gordon at Khar- toum, ed. by A. E. Hake, 1885

Dyott' s Diary, ed. by R. W. Jefferey, 1907

The Diary of Frances, Lady Shelley, ed. by R. Edgcumbe, 1912

Diary and Corres- pondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Col- chester, 3 vols., 1861

Page.

LIST OF DIARIES

MiNOB DiABEES — continued.

51

Name of Diarist.

Elizabeth Fry

Occupation.

George Rose

Lady Nugent

Sir George Jackson

Henry Martyn

Thomas Creevey

Lady Charlotte Bury

Lieutenant Swabey

Henry Crabb Robinson

Mary Shelley .

Sir George Cockbum

Date of Diary.

Member of Par- liament

Source.

Page.

Diplomatist . 1801-1816

Missionary.

Mamber of Par- liament

Lady in waiting and novelist

Soldier

1803-1812

' 1809-1818 1810-1820

1811-1813 i

Barrister

Admiral

• •

1797-1845 Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, ed. by her two daughters, 2 vols., 1847 321

1800-1811 I George Rose, Diaries and Correspondence, ed. by L. V, Har- , court, 1860 327

1801-1814 Lady Nugent' s Diary, Jamaica One Hun- dred Years Ago, ed. by F. Cundell, 1907 328

Diaries and Letters of Sir G. Jackson, ed. by Lady Jack- son, 4 vols., 1872 331 Journals and Letters cftheBev. H. Mar- tyn, ed. by Rev. S. Wilberforce, 1839 j 332 The Creevey Papers, ed. by Sir Herbert j Maxwell, 1903 335

The Diary of a Lady in Waiting, ed. by A. Francis^ Steuart, 1908 337

! Lt. Swabey' s Diary, ed. by Colonel F. A. Whingates, 1895 (Royal United Ser- vice Institution Library) 342

Diary and Corre- spondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, ed. by T. Sadler, 3 vols., 1869 344

Life and Letters of Mary Woljstone- craft Shelley, by Mrs. Julian Mar- shall, 1889 I 349 Napoleon's Last Voy- \ age, 1888 j 352

1811-1867

1814r-1840

1815

52

ENGLISH DIARIES

Minor Diaries — contintted.

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
Lady Malcolm .	—	1816	A Diary of St. Helena, ed by Sir A. Wilson, 1899	354
Henry Matthews	Lawyer	1817-1819	The Diary of an Invalid, by Henry Matthews, 1819	355
Henry Fynes	Member of Par-	1819-1852	Literary Remains of
Clinton	liament		Henry Fynes Clin- ton, ed. by C. J. Fynes Clinton, 1854	357
Mary Browne .		1821	The Diary of a Girl in France in 1821, 1905	362
Richard Hurrell	Clergyman	1826-1828	Eeynains of Richard
Froude			Hurrell Froude, 2
	—		vols., 1837	363
W. E. Gladstone	Statesman	1826-1896	Life of Gladstone, J. Morley, 3 vols., 1903.	364
Thomas Raikes .	Clubman .	1831-1847	A Portion of the Journal of Thomas Raikes, 3 vols., 1856	369
Fanny Kemble	Actress .	1832-1833	Journal by Frances
(Mrs. Butler)			Anne Butler, 2 vols., 1835	371
Henry Greville .	Diplomatist and coxu'tier	1832-1872	Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville, ed. by the Coimtess of Straf- ford, 1883-1893-4, 6 vols.	374
Edward Pease .	Railway pro- jector	1838-1857	The Diaries of Ed- ward Pease, ed. by Alfred Pease, 1907	376
William Goodall	Hmitsman	1843-1859	The History of the Belvoir Hunt, by Dale	379
H. E. Manning .	Cardinal .	1844-1890	Life of Cardinal Manning, by E. S. Purcell, 2 vols., 1896	380
Samuel	Bishop	1830-1873	Life of Samuel Wil-
Wilberforce			berforce, by A. R. Ashwell, 3 vols., 1880	385

I

LIST OF DIARIES

58

Minor Diabies — continued.

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
Lord Macaulay	Historian .	1838-1859	Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, G. Trevelyan, 2 vols. 1876	389
George Howard,	Statesman	1843-1864	Extracts from Jour-
Earl of Carlisle			nals of the Earl of Carlisle (privately
Nassau Senior	Economist	1848-1858	printed) Journals of Visits to Ireland, 1852- 1862; to France and Italy, 1848- 1852; to Turkey and Greece, 1857-8	393 396
Colonel A. Ponsonby	Soldier	1849-1868	Original manuscript in the possession of Maj.- General J.
Lieut. -General	Soldier	1854-1855	Ponsonby Crimean Diary and	397
Sir Charles			Letters of Gen. Sir
Windham			C. Windham, ed. by Maj. H. Pearse, 1897	400
George Eliot	Novelist	1855-1877	George Eliot's Life, by G. W. Cross,
John Addington	Author	1860-1888	1884, 2 vols. John Addington Sy-	403
Symonds			monds, by Horatio
			Browne, 2 vols. 1895	407
Sir G. Graham .	Soldier . . f 1	1860 1882	Lt.-Gen. Sir Gerald Graham, by Col.
		1885	R. H. Vetch, 1901	411
William Cory .	Poet and school- master	1863-1873	Letters and Journals of W. Cory, ar- ranged by F. Warre Cornish, 1897	412
James Hannington	Bishop	1863-1885	James Hannington, by E. C. Dawson, 1887	410
Captain Eyre	Soldier	1899-1901	Boer War Diary of
Lloyd			Capt. T. H. Eyre Lloyd, privately printed, 1905	418

54

ENGLISH DIARIES

Short Noa?iCES

Name of Diarist.	Occupation.	Date of Diary.	Source.	Page.
Miss Berry . .	—	1783-1848	Journals and Corre- spondence of Miss Berry, ed. by Lady T. Lewis, 3 vols., 1865	420
Joseph Hunter	Antiquary	1806	Brit. Museum Add. MS. 24,441	421
The Marquis of	Governor-Gen-	1813-1818	The Private Journals
Hastings	eral of India		of the Marquess of Hastings, ed by the Marchioness of Bute, 1858	421
Thomas Grey	—	1826	Original MS.	422
Sir Mountstuart	Member of	1851-1901	Diaries of Sir M.
Grant-Duff	Parliament,		Ch-ant - Duff, 14
	Governor of		vols.	422
	Madras
J. E. Denison,	Speaker of the	■ 1857-1872	The Diary of John
Viscount	House of Com-		Evelyn Denison,
Ossington	mons		1900	423

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Lord Bernard Gordon - L ennox

Arthur Graeme

West W. N. P.

Barbellion

Soldier

Soldier

Musevim Assis- tant

1914

1915-1917

1903-1919

Original MS. in the possession of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon

The Diary of a Dead Officer, 1920

The Journal of a Disappointed Man, 1919. • A Last Diary, 1921

424

428

432

An alphabetical list of all diaries mentioned in the volimie will be foimd in the Index.

In the diary extracts quoted in the reviews round brackets denote paren- theses written by the diarists themselves, and square brackets explanations and notes which have been inserted.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

EDWARD VI

ONLY two diaries of English sovereigns are available; and no two other diaries in this collection can present a greater contrast. In due course we shall deal with the diary of the Queen who Hved till she was 82. We now must examine the diary of the King who died when he was 16.

Although the diary is all in Edward's handwriting, the fact that this sedate, concise and dignified epitome of events should have been recorded by a boy who was under 12 years old when he began to write it naturally led to some doubt being cast on its absolute authenticity. Mr. J. G. Nichols, who was responsible for the full annotated edition of the diary which appeared in 1857, agrees with Burnet, the seventeenth-century historian, that, apart from the introductory summary, it was not written from dictation, but was entirely his own. Some inaccuracies with regard to dates seem to support this opinion. Hallam also comes to the same conclusion, although he would like it not to be genuine because of the off-hand way in which Edward refers to the execution of his uncles and the treatment of his sister. " But," he concludes, "he had, I suspect, too much Tudor blood." We have also to bear in mind that there is plenty of contemporary evidence of the boy King's extraordinary erudition.

So we may take it that this pithy and restrained recital of events was written by a boy between the ages of 11 and 14. The diary does not contain any definite expression of opinion or any personal jottings, nevertheless in its style the compendious and succinct narrative of events is by no means colourless or imper- sonal.

There is an introductory record of events from his birth (1537) to his accession ; the burial of Henry VIII, his own coronation^ the war with Scotland, the war with France, and the suppression of Kett's rebellion. In March, 1549, the actual diary begins with

55

56 ENGLISH DIARIES

frequent brief and sometimes almost daily entries. He records his movements, official appointments, royal proclamations, foreign events, diplomatic negotiations, trials, and executions and his pastimes. The elaboration of the tilting jousts and bear-bating is the only boyish feature in the diary. While there is nothing in the nature of comment on events, there is a conscientious exactness and curiously mature and distinctly regal tone in the entries which is significant. (" Me " is always written with a capital M.)

The following extracts have been taken from the Clarendon Historical Society's reprint in which the original spelling has been modernized. We will take first his intercourse and negotiation with the French Ambassadors.

1549. May 25. The Ambassadors came to the Court where they saw Me take the oath for the Acceptation of the Treaty and afterwards dined with Me ; and after dinner saw a Pastime of ten against ten at the Ridg whereof on the one side were the Duke of Sxifiolk, the Vicedam, the Lord Lisle, and eeven other gentlemen apparell'd in yellow. On the other the Lord Strange, Monsieur Henandoy and eight other in blue.

May 29. The Ambassadors had a fair supper made them by the Duke of Somerset and afterwards went into the Thames and saw both the Bear hunted in the River and also Wildfire cast out of Boats and many pretty conceits.

In July in the following year he records with great clearness a conversation he has with the French Ambassador in an " Inner Chamber," and ends up :

I assured him That I thank him for his order and also his Love, etc., and I should show like love in all points. For Rumours, they were not always to be believed and that I did sometinaes provide for the worst bvit never did any harm upon their hearing. For Ministers, I said I would rather appease these controversies by words than do anything by force.

July 26. Monsieur le Mareschale dined with Me. After dinner saw the strength of the English archers. After he had done so at his departure I gave him a Diamond from my finger worth by estimation £150 both for Pains and also for My memory. Then he took his leave.

After a careful summary of a long diplomatic commimication to the Emperor, he adds, " The reasonings be in my desk."

Edward's unrelenting adherence to Protestantism is apparent in many of the entries, but in none more than those which relate to his sister Mary.

March 18. The Lady Mary my sister came to me to Westminster where after Salutations she was called with my Council into a Chamber ; where was declared how long I had suffered her Mass in hope of her reconciliation and

EDWARD VI 57

how now being no hope which I perceived by her Letters, except I saw some short amendment I could not bear it. She answered That her Soul was God's and her Faith she would not change nor dissemble her Opinion with contrary doings. It was said I constrained not her Faith but willed her not as a King to Rule but as a subject to obey ; and that her example might breed too much inconvenience.

April 10. Mr. Wotton had his Instructions made to do withal to the Emperor to be as Ambassador Legier in Mr. Morison's place as to declare this Resolution that if the Emperor would sufier my Ambassador with him to use his service then I would his ; if he would not stiffer Mine I would not suffer his. Likewise my sister was my Subject and should use my Service appointed by Act of Parliament.

Jime 22. The Lady Mary sent Letters to the Coimcil marveUing at the'"^ Imprisonment of Dr. Mallet her Chaplain for saying of Mass before her houshold seeing it was promised the Emperors Ambassadour she should not be molested in Religion but that she and her Houshold should have the Mass said before them continually. y

Aug. 29. Certain Pinaces were prepared to see that there should be no conveyance over sea of the Lady Mary secretly done. Also appointed that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chamberlain, the Vice Chamberlain and the Secre- tary Petre should see by all means they could whether she used the Mass ; and if she did that the Laws should be executed on her chaplains. Also that when I came from this Progress to Hampton Court or Westminster both my sisters should be with Me till fm-ther Orders were taken for this purpose.

No regrets are expressed with regard to the trial and execution of Somerset, and when anyone is " condemned to the Fire " he notes it without comment. His supposed compassion for Joan of Kent is not expressed in the diary, in which her fate is simply related in the following words ;

May 2. Joan Boacher otherwise called Joan of Kent was biu^t for liolding that Christ was not Incarnate of the Virgin Mary ; being condemned the year before but kept in hope of Conversion and the 30th of April the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Ely were to persuade her but she with- stood them and reviled the Preacher that preached at her Death.

He gives an interesting description of the funeral of Martin^ Bucer, the well-known Protestant divine, whose body in Queen Mary's reign was exhumed and burnt.

1550. Feb. 28. The learned man Bucerus died at Cambridge who was two days after buried in St. Mary's Church at Cambridge ; All the whole Univer- sity with the whole town bringing him to the Grave to the number of 3,000 persons. Also there was an oration of Mr. Haddon made very eloquently at his death and a sermon of (Dr. Parker) after that Master Redman made a third sermon ; which three sermons made the People wonderfully to lament his Death. Last of all all the learned men of the University made their epitaphs in his praise laying them on his grave.

/

58 ENGLISH DIARIES

He notes his illness in April, 1551. " I fell sick of the measles and small pox." The diary concludes some time before his death.

It was used by Sir John Heywood in the first history of Edward VI 's reign, which appeared shortly after the King's death. The original manuscript formed part of the Cottonian Library now in the British Museum.

HENRY MACHYN

THE diary of Henry Machyn extends over a period of thirteen years from 1550 to 1563. He was an undertaker or furnisher of funeral trappings resident in London. The diary is largely taken up with elaborate accounts of funerals, but he also describes pageants, revels, processions, proclamations, trials and punishments. The latter occur with very great frequency during Queen Mary's reign. Of himself and his opinions he says practically nothing. On the few occasions when he mentions himself he refers to himself in the third person. Living as he did in the reigns of Edward VI, Mary and Ehzabeth, he wit- nessed extreme rehgious changes. His sympathies were evi- dently inclined to the old form of worship which in its elaborate ceremonial gave a better chance to the craft by which he gained his hvelihood. He mentions the preachers at St. Paul's Cross and at the Court, and elsewhere, and once or twice he comments on the weather. The entries are not regular but frequent, and the diary is as impersonal as a diary can be. The spelling is so bad as at times to be unintelhgible ; the extracts will, therefore, be transcribed into modern speUing. But an instance of Machjoi's own speUing may first be given. The entry records the arraignment of Sir Thomas Arundell in the reign of Edward VI.

The XXVII day of Januarii was reyned Sir Thomas Arundell knyght and so the quest cold nott fynd ym tyll the morow after and so he whent to the Towre agayn and then the quest wher shutt up tyll the morrow with-owt mett or drynke or candylle or fyre and on the morow he cam a-gayne and the quest quytt ym of tresun and cast hym of felony to be hangyd.

The very full descriptions of funerals are filled with technical terms and heraldic expressions. This being his main interest,

HENRY MACHYN 59

they recur on very many pages throughout the diary. It will suffice to give one example.

Edward VI Funeral.

1553. The VIII day of Augiist was buried the noble King Edward VI ; and at his burying was the greatest mourning (mone) made for him of his death as ever was heard or seen both of all sorts of people weeping and lament- ing ; and first of all went a great company of children in their surplices and clerks singing and then his father's bedeman and then ii heralds and then a standard with a dragon and then a great number of his servants in black and then another standard with a white greyhound and then after a great number of his officers and after them comes more heralds and then a standard with the head officer of his house ; and then heralds, Norroy bore the helmet and the crest on horseback and then his great banner of arms in embroidery and with divers other banners and then came riding Master Clarenceaux with his target with his garter and his sword gorgeously and rich, and after Garter with his coat armour in embroidery and then more heralds of arms ; and then came the chariot with great horses draped with velvet to the ground and every horse having a man on his back in black and every one bearing a banner roll of divers kings arms and with scutcheons on their horses and then the chariot covered with cloth of gold and on the chariot lay a picture lying " recheussly " with a crown of gold and a great coUar and his sceptre in his hand lying in hia robes and the garter about his leg and a coat in embroidery of gold ; about the corpse were borne four banners, a banner of the order another of the red rose another of Queen Jane another of the queen's mother. After him went a goodly horse covered with cloth of gold unto the ground and the master of the horse with a man of arms in armour which was offered both the man and the horse. There was set up a goodly hearse in Westminster Abbey with baimer rolls and pensells and hung with velvet about.

A couple of instances may be given of other events. The visit of " the old Quyne of Schottes " to London in 1551 :

Then came the Queen of Scots and all our ladies and her gentlewomen and our gentlewomen to the number of 100 ; and there was sent her many great gifts by the mayor and aldermen as beefs, muttons, veals, swines, bread, wild foul, wine, beer, spices and all things and quails, sturgeon, wood, and coals and salmons by divers men.

A May game in 1555 :

The same day was a good May game at Westminster as has been seen with giants, morris pikes, guns and drums and devils and three morris dances and bagpipes and viols and many disguised and the lord and the lady of the May rode gorgeously with minstrels divers playing.

The punishments he records occur in the earlier part of the diary with great frequency. But even executions he only de- scribes from the ceremonial point of view. Latimer's and Ridley's burning is noted, but with no further comment than " they were some time great preachers as ever was; and at their burning did preach doctor Smyth," In one entry in 1554 he records the

60 ENGLISH DIARIES

hanging and quartering of no less than fifty-seven people in different parts of London. Almost consecutive extracts may be given showing how common these excessive punishments were in Queen Mary's reign.

1555. The 6th day of July rode to Tybivrn to be hanged 3 men and one drawn upon a hurdle.

The 8th day of July were 3 more delivered out of Newgate and sent into the country to be burned for heretics.

The 12th day of July was burned at Canterbury 4 men for heresy 2 priests and 2 lajrmen.

The 20th day of July was carried to the Tower in the morning early 4 men.

The 2nd day of August was a shoemaker burned at St. Edmundsbury for heresy.

The 8th day of August between 4 and 5 in the morning was a prisoner delivered unto the sheriff of Middlesex to be carried to Uxbridge to be btu'ned.

Machyn belonged to the Merchant Taylors and he mentions the Company several times. He notes very often the names of preachers, but makes no remarks about the sermons. All pro- clamations are duly set down.

The only personal references to himself are : Two occasions on which he mentions his birthday, not however on the same date, nor does the age tally. Such trivialities were beneath the notice of one who was occupied with hearses and scutcheons and banners and mantles. On the 16th of May, 1554, he makes himself out to be 56, and on May 20th, 1562, he says he is 63 ; on another occasion he records the birth of " a whenche," afterwards chris- tened Katherine, who was probably a grandchild ; and further the occasion on which he had to sit on the stool of penance for ha^^ng spread defamatory reports concerning Veron, the French Protestant Minister.

1561. The 23 day of November did preach at Paul's cross Renagir, it was St. Clement's day, did sit all the sermon time " monser Henry de Machjni " for 2 words the which was told him that Veron the Frenchman the preacher was taken with a wench, by the reporting by one William Laurans . . . the which the same Harry [i.e. Machyn himself] knelt down before Master Veron and the bishop and they woiild not forgive him for all his friends that he had worshipful.

He gives an account of an amusing but scandalous incident dated April 8th, 1554.

On the same day somebody unknown hanged a cat on the gallows beside the cross in Cheap, habited in a garment like to that the priest wore that

JOHN DEE 61

said mass ; she had a shaven crown and in her fore feet held a piece of paper made round representing the wafer.

A few days later (and as this is our last extract we will relapse into Machyn's own spelling) :

was a proclamasyon was mad that what so mever he wher that cold bryng forth hym that dyd hang the catt on the galaus he shuld have xx marke for ys labur.

Machyn writes " welwet " and " wacabond," early examples of cockney pronunciation which remind one of Sam Weller.

The diary is of historical and antiquarian interest because of its age and the rareness of such complete descriptions of pageants of that time. A diary, however, on the same subjects to-day would be unreadable.

The manuscript was one of the volumes which suffered from the fire of the Cottonian Library, but it was not destroyed. In 1848 it was printed and published with notes by the Camden Society.

JOHN DEE

JOHN DEE was a magician, a necromancer and astrologer, who was consulted by queens and princes and the nobihty. Before examining his diary some brief account of his strange career may be given. He was born in 1527 ; he took up mathe- matics and astronomy at Cambridge, working at times with only four hours' sleep, and was elected a Fellow of Trinity College. He also studied abroad in France and Holland, and became celebrated as a learned mathematician. He was assigned a pension by Edward VI in 1551, but on the accession of Mary he was accused of using enchantments against the Queen's life, placed in confine- ment, and only obtained his liberty after four years. He was always in favour with Queen Elizabeth from the time that he was asked by Lord Dudley to name a propitious day for her corona- tion. His home was at Mortlake, where the Queen on more than one occasion visited him. He travelled abroad to present a copy of one of his books to the Emperor Maximilian, and later again to consult with German physicians and astrologers in regard to the illness of the Queen. Edward Kelly, an apothecary who had been convicted of forgery and lost both his ears in the pillory, became Dee's friend, and together they performed various incan- tations and maintained a frequent imaginary intercourse with

62 ENGLISH DIARIES

spirits. They travelled together and stayed with Albert Laski, a Polish nobleman who visited Dee when he was in England. But Dee quarrelled with his companion and returned home. During his absence the mob, believing him to be a wizard, had broken into his house and destroyed furniture, books and chemical apparatus. In 1595 he became warden of Manchester College, where he stayed nine years. He died at Mortlake in 1604, at the age of 81, in the greatest poverty. We have the following descrip- tion of him from Aubrey, which seems to fit in with the part he played : " of very fair clear sanguine complexion, with a long beard as white as milk — a very handsome man tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artists gowne with hanging sleeves."

His diary covers the period from 1577 to 1600, although also from 1554 to 1577 there are a few entries each year consisting of notes of nativities inserted by him at various times when he was consulted as an astrologer. For instance :

1560. July 8. Margaret Russell Countess of Cumberland hora 2 min 9 Exonioe mane.

1563. March 23. Mr. William Fennar a meridie inter horam imdecimam et duodecimam nocte.

The diary does not provide the amount of occult material that we should expect, as it is taken up with lists of visitors, business about his property, weather reports, accounts, the borrowing of money and a great deal about his changes of servants and the wages he paid them. The servant problem, acute in all ages, was no doubt specially anxious for a man who was suspected of being a magician.

I did before Barthilmew Hikman pay Letice her full yere's wages ending the 7th day of Aprill : her wages being four nobles an apron a payr of hose and shoes.

I discharged Letice of my service and payd all duetyes untyll this day. I gave her for a month over 2s. Qd. and for to spend on the way I gave her 2s. 6d.

Anne Powell cam to my service ; she is to have four nobles by the year a payr of hose and shoes.

Jane (his wife) most desperately angry in respect her maydes.

He has frequent visits from celebrated people :

The Erie of Lecester, Mr. Philip Sydney, Mr. Dyer came to my house.

The Countess of Kent and the Coimtess of CHmiberland visited me in the afternoon. The Lord WiUoughby dyned with me.

JOHN DEE 63

The Lady Walsingham cam suddenly into my house very freely. The Lord Albert Laski cam to me and lay at my howse all night.

The Erie of Derby with Lady Gerard Sir — Molyneux and his lady dawghter to the Lady Gerrard, Master Hawghton and others cam suddenly uppon me after three of the clok. I made them a skoler's collation and it was taken in good part.

He also dines with Sir Walter Raleigh, the Archbishop and other great people. No doubt he was the fashionable rage at one time owing to the Queen having patronized him. It is known that in 1577 his services were hurriedly demanded in order to prevent the mischief to Her Majesty's person apprehended from a waxen image of her with a pin stuck through its breast found in Lincoln's Inn Fields. We will give a selection of entries concerning his meetings with Queen Ehzabeth.

1578. I spake with the Quene hora quinta : I spake with Mr. Secretary Walsingham.

The Queen's Majestic had conference with me at Richmond inter 9 et 11.

1580. The Queen's Majestic cam from Rychemond in her coach, the higher way of Mortlake felde and when she cam right against the church she turned down toward my house : and when she was against my garden in the felde she stode there a good while and then cam ynto the street at the great gate of the felde where she espied me at my doore making obeysains to her Majestic : she beckend her hand for me ; I cam to her coach side, she speedily pulled off her glove and gave me her hand to kiss and to be short asked me to resort to her court and to give her to wete when I cam ther : hor. 6J a meridie.

The Queue's Majestie to my great comfort (hora quinta) cam with her trayn from the court and at my dore graciously calling me to her, on horsebak, exhorted me briefly to take my mother's death patiently.

1583. The Quene lying at Richmond went to Mr. Secretary Walsingham to dynner ; she coimng by my dore gratiously called me to her and so I went to her horse side as far as where Mr. Hudson dwelt [the following referring to the Due d'Anjou is in Greek characters which Dee uses occasionally for the more secret entries] Her Majestie asked me oboscurely of Monsieur's state dixi biothanatos erit. The Quene went from Richmond toward Grenwich and at her going on horsbak being new up she called for me by Mr. Rawley his putting her in mynde and she sayd " quod defertur non aufertur " and gave me her right hand to kisse.

1590. The Queue's Majestie being at Richmond graciously sent for me. I cam to her at three quarters of the clok afternone and she sayd she wold send me something to kepe Christmas with.

The Quene's Majestie called for me at my dore circa 3J a meridie as she passed by and I met at Estshene gate when she graciously, putting down her mask, did eay with merry chere " I thank the Dee there was never promisse

64 ENGLISH DIARIES

made but it was broken or kept." I uiiderstode her Majesty to mean of the hundred angels (coins) she promised to send me this day.

1594. Between 6 and 7 after none the Quene sent for me to her in the privy garden at Grenwich when I delivered in ^\Titing the hevonly admonition and Her Majestie tok it thankfully. Onely the Lady Warwyk and Sir Robert Cecil his lady war in the garden with Her Majestie.

But royal favour, as he learned, is capricious, for Dee died In great poverty.

Controversies and disputes figure frequently in the diary. There is Emery's " most unhonest, hypocriticall and devilish dealings and devises agaynst me " ; there is Roger Cook's " unseemly deahng " ; there is " the knavery " of Vincent Murfyn against whom he gets £100 damages ; there are " the nowghty dealings " of one Barnabas, a dispute with the Bishop of Leightyn, and eventually he fell out with his fellow astrologer Edward Kelly. But they were close friends for some years and Kelly's name occurs very frequently.

Mr. E. K. at nine of the clock af ternone sent for me to his laboratory over the gate to se how he distilled sex-icon.

Mr. E. K. did disclose some accounted me frendes how untrue they were [in Greek characters].

Mr. K: put the glass in dung.

E. K. did open the great secret to me, God be thanked.

Vidi divinam aquam demonstratione magnifici domini et amid mei inconi- parabilis D. Ed Kelei ante meridiem tertia hora.

I gave Mr. Ed Kelly my glass so highly and long esteemed of our Quene and the Emperor Randolph the second.

Mr. Edward Kelly gave me the water earth and all.

I, delivered to Mr. Kelly the powder, the bokes, the glas and the bone.

After they parted Dee corresponds with him and refers to him as Sir Edward Kelly. A few extracts must be given of the more mysterious references to rappings, spirits and dreams.

It was the 8th day being Wednesday hora noctis 10, 11, the strange noyse i in my chamber of knocking and the voyce ten times repeted, somewhat Uke the shriek of an owle, but more longly drawn and more softly as it were in my chamber. All the night very strange knocking and rapping in my chamber.

Barnabas Saul lying in the hall was strangely troubled by a spiritual creature about midnight.

Robert Gardner declared unto me hora 4^ a certeyn great philosophical

JOHN DEE 65

secret, as he termed it, of a spirituall creatuer, and was this day willed to come to me and declare it which was solemnly done and with common prayer.

Robert Wood visitted with spiritual creatiores had comfort by conference.

^ My dream of being naked and my skyn all overwrought with work like some kmde of tuft mockado with crosses blew and red ; and on my left arme about the arme in a wreath this word I red — sine me nihil potestis facere.

Saturday night I dremed that I was deade and afterwards my bowels wer taken out I walked and talked with diverse and among others with the Lord Threserer who was cam to my howse to burn my bokes when I was dead and thought he loked sourly on me.

My terrible dream that Mr. Kelly would by force bereave me of my bokes, toward day break.

This night I had the vision and shew of many bokes in my dreame and among the rest was one great volume thik in large quarto new printed on the first page whereof as a title in great letters printed " Notiis in Judaea Deus." Many other bokes methought I saw new printed of very strange arguments.

[In Greek characters.] This night my wife dreamed that one cam to her and touched her saying Mistres Dee you are conceived of child whose name must be Zacharias be of good chere he sal do well as this doth.

We also get this account of a curious ceremony :

Ann my nurse had long byn tempted by a wicked spirit but this day it was evident how she was possessed of him ... at night I anoynted (in the name of Jesus) Ann Frank her brest with holy oyle. In the morning she required to be anoynted and I did very devowtly prepare myself and pray for vertue and powr and Christ his blessing of the oyle to the expulsion of the wycked : and then twyse anoynted the wycked one did resest a while.

He records quite a trivial incident, evidently attaching to it some occult significance :

The spider at ten of the clok at night suddenly on my desk and suddenly gon ; a most rare one in bygnes and length of feet. I was in a great study at my desk. * ^

His marriage with his second wife, Jane Fromonds, is briefly noted in Latin. There are references to her and frequently these words occur in Greek character, " Jane had them," but it cannot be said what " them " refers to. His children are also mentioned; specially Arthur, who on one occasion was wounded " on his hed by his own wanton throwing of a brik bat upright and not well avoyding the fall of it agayn " ; and Theodor, who " had a sore fall on his mowth at mid-day."

Dr. Dee was naturally concerned about his own health and there are many references to it and to the remedies he took ;

66 ENGLISH DIARIES

My mervaglous horsnes and in manner spechelesnes toke me, being nothing at all otherwise sick.

I was very sick upon two or thre sage leaves eten in the morning ; better suddenly at night ; when I cast them up I was weU.

I had on the Sunday afternoon the cramp most extremely in the very centre of the calves of both my legs and in the place where I had the suddejm grief on Bartilmew even last I had payn, so intoUerable as if the vaynes or artheries wold have broken by extreme stretching or how else I cannot tell. The payn lasted about half a quater of an hour. I took my purgation of six grayns.

A great fit of the stone in my left kydney ; all day I could do but three or four drops of water but I drunk a draught of white wyne and salet oyle and after that crab's eyes in powder with the bone in the carps head and abowt four of the clok I did eat tosted cake buttered and with sugar and nutmeg on it and drunk two great draughts of ale with it and I voyded within an howr much water and a stone as big as an Alexander seed. God be thanked.

In the morning began my hed to ake and be hevy more than of late and had some wambling in my stomach. I had broken my fast with sugar sopps.

Much more is known of Dr. Dee than what is contained in this diary. He wrote nearly eighty different works, but most of them were not printed. • He was very much interested in the reform of the Calendar and refers to it several times in his diary. In his Compendious Rehearsal he gives a full account of his career, but this was written for the official eye. As will be seen, he was religious but intensely superstitious, and he had an intellectual and scientific mind which was obscured by his belief in the occult.

The diary was discovered in the library of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford written in a small illegible hand on the margins of old almanacs. It was printed; together with the catalogue he made of his Library Manuscripts, by the Camden Society (edited by J. O. HaUiwell) in 1842. j

SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM

THE high offices held by Sir Francis Walsinghara under Queen Elizabeth and the important negotiations with which he was entrusted would lead one to suppose that, if he kept a diary at all, it would be one of particular interest. It is a disappointment, therefore, that the Journal which exists consists of nothing more than notices of his movements, the Queen's movements when he is in England, and occasionally of other events, with memoranda for each day of all letters received and sent.

I

SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM 67

A peculiar feature of the diary is that, although the entries are in the first person, the manuscript is not in Walsingham's own hand but in that of his secretary.

The diary begins in December, 1570, when Walsingham, who ^ had been already sent as ambassador to France to assist in nego- tiating an accord between Charles IX and the Huguenots, had been again dispatched thither as resident ambassador, and part of his instructions was to prepare the way for the marriage of the Queen with the Duke of Anjou. This is interesting, but all we get in the Journal is :

I went to the Palais and there had audience at Queen Mother's handes. I went to Gallion and there had audience of Queen Mother and Monsieur

or equally brief entries of the same description.

The last entries are dated April, 1583, but there are several breaks, one of nearly two years between 1578 and 1580. It is unnecessary to quote the entries as they are seldom more than one hne and they tell us practically nothing of what Walsingham was doing and absolutely nothing of what Walsingham was hke.

The very first entry is in peculiar grammar ;

Sunday Dec. 3. That the Queene of Scotes shotdde be verie sycke.

But on Monday Walsingham corrected his secretary and no doubt instructed him that he did not want the diary kept in the oratio ohliqua.

Great events are suggested, but never related :

I wente unto the Courte and had conference with my Lord of Lecestre and Mr. Secretarie about a matter of great importance.

This is how he records a journey :

Monday 8. I departed from Abbeville and came to bed at Piquenel.

Tuesday 9. I departed from Piquenel and came to bed at Amiens. And so on till he gets to Paris.

Apart from his official duties, the only entry which suggests ■j anything in the least domestic seems to refer to the engagement ' of a coachman.

Oct. 21. Entertaynment of a new cochier.

Just to illustrate the brief memorandum style of the diary, some consecutive entries may be given in February, 1581.

68 ENGLISH DIARIES

Thursday 1. The Court removed to Rochester. Monsieur departed.

Friday 2. I went to Rochester.

Saturday 3. Hir Majestic removed to Sittingboume. I went to Mr. Cromar's to bed.

Monday 5. Hir Majestie removed to Canterbury. I went to Canterbury to bed.

Wednesday 7. Monsieur departed from Canterbury to imbarke at Sand- wich. I wayted on him some part of the way and returned to Canterbury.

Luckily there is a great deal more known about Sir Francis Walsingham than can be gathered from these meagre diaries His correspondence during Ms embassies in France was pubMshed in extenso by Sir Dudley Digges in 1655, mider the title The Compkat Ambassador.

The diary was pubhshed by the Camden Society in 1871.

SIR THOMAS CONINGSBY

THIS is the earhest of the soldiers' diaries which are in- cluded in this collection. It is only a fragment covering, vrith some breaks, the few weeks from August 13 to December 24, 1591. Like the majority of soldiers' diaries, it is concerned exclusively with military ojaerations and contains no personal references. Sir Thomas Coningsby wrote definitely for the information of some particular person whom he addresses once or twice. His notes are full and grapliic ; his style is so natural, easy and mistilted that it makes one regret that the fragment is so brief.

The Siege of Rouen with wliich the diary deals is well known in the liistory of France as one of the incidents of the wars of the League. The city was seized and garrisoned by that party in the year 1590. Henry IV invested it on November 11, 1591, and the siege was raised on the approach of the Duke of Parma in the; following April. Queen Ehzabeth was prevailed upon to send forces in aid of the protestant King of France, as she then had reason to esteem him. It was with this expeditionary force mider the Earl of Essex that Sir Thomas Coningsby ser\'ed. The diary is headed :

A Jomall of Cheife Thinges happened in our ^Jomey from Deape the 13 of Auguste untyll [blank]

The first entry begins :

Upon Satterdaie binge the 13 of Auguste my lord having intelligence that those of Roan mente to give him a camisado [surprise] in the nighte, in hia

SIR THOMAS CONINGSBY 69

army provided all things necessarie to welcome them, together with a deter- mynation that if they came not that nyghte then the next morninge he would have surprysed some of them in some of their own holdes and fortresses nere adjoynynge.

They leave Dieppe and proceed on their march

in a very hot daie wonderfullie dusted and pestered with flies.

They are as hospitably received in the French villages as the expeditionary force 323 years later :

We found the villages and howses utterlie abandoned but yet mylke, syder, freshe water and bread almost in everie house readye sett to reheve our soldiers.

Some of Sir Thomas's descriptions of adventures and engage- ments with the enemy may be given.

Having scarcely ended our soldierly repaste there came four harquelatieres who advertysed that they had discovered the enemye comynge out of a wood nere unto us ; and being sente backe to take some better understanding of them in going to the rising of a lytel hill they were encountered by seven harquelatiers of th' ennemy, who shrowded themselves behind a wyndmyll and assalting ours slewe ii of them and hurt the third.

My lord only accompanyed with two gentlemen wente to the King's quarter where after dynner th' eixnemye sallyed out on every syde and were verie braggante and upon the castle syde made skyrmysh with our French there. The King, my lord and his grand esquire lay upon an immynente place all on a cloake and beheld it. Upon our quarter they sallyed out upon our neighbor Mounte Morancy's men who indevored to take a chiu-ch nere unto the verie gate and possessed themselves of it. Whereupon they made their sally and inforced their horse and foote to abandon the place with more than a lytle haste.

Although I sale it, our forwardnes doth make the French wonder to see ours of the beste sorte eyther well mounted or placed in the head of the troupes of pykes, to aunswere all alarme and to make the proudest ronne when any offer to charge them.

We might see many of their horse drove downe and th' ennemye withdraw within the covert of the towne ; and there we might behold many a horse well spurred and many a sword joUyly glystering in the simn on both sydes.

This daie a page conamynge into the king's quarter with a letter from Villiers to some men aboute the king, was reprehended, and he ymmediatly rj put the letters into his mouth to have eaten them and had so doan but that one caught him by the throate and made spytt them out ; but they were so marred that noething could be read at all ; he hath bene tortured and con- fessed some things for the king's tome in this buysines.

This daie being a great myst, th' ennemye had laid soundrie ambuscadoes for us, and with all invention of villanous raihng they thoughte to have drawn us out of our trenches to skyrmysh but ours foreseeing the padd in the strawe

70 ENGLISH DIARIES

have deferred to aunswer their words tyll we be strong ynough to breake their heads.

But Coningsby makes notes about the lighter moments of recreation as well as about the fighting.

The next daie being well loged, my lord invited for solace monsieur Revience lieutenant governor of Picardye where a great nomber of ladies were gathered together not without dauiicing and musicke.

This eveninge being the 22 of Auguste the kinge with his nobles would neades leap where our lord generall did overleape them all.

The 19 and 20 October we passed in making goode cheare, coursing in the fields, ryding of horses playing at ballone and the lyke.

The 22 daie we passed with playinge at tennys in the forenoone and a playinge at ballon in th' afternoone with the lieuetenant-gouvemor of Deape and the victorie fell on our syde.

Sir Roger and I were invyted to certaine French gentlemen where we dranke carowses ; and what eyther with the cold of the long expectation in the momynge or overmuch wyne at dynner th' one syde of my head ake 2 daies after.

The diary closes on December 24 and was transmitted to his friend for whom it was written; whom he addresses in one passage : "I pray you use it (the information) with your wonted dyscretion ; for I would not wrjrte thus much but to you."

Probably Coningsby went on writing : unfortunately nothing further is in existence. It is to be regretted that we have not his account of the first demonstration made by the Englishmen before Rouen in which the Earl of Essex had not only the misfortune to lose his brother but also to incur the censure of his detractors at home and the displeasure of his royal mistress.

Sir Thomas Coningsby was elected to Parliament for the city of Hereford in 1593, and also became sheriff of the county. He died in 1625.

The journal was pubHshed in 1847 in the first volume of the Camden Miscellanies.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

SIR SIMONDS D'EWES

BORN in Coxden, in Dorsetshire, in 1602, Simonds d'Ewes was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and called to the Bar. He became High Sheriff for Suffolk in 1639 and was elected member of Parliament for Sudbury in 1640. In 1641 he was created a Baronet by Charles I, but on the outbreak of the Civil War he adhered to Parliament. In 1648 he was turned out of Parliament by the army as one of those who were thought to retain some regard for the person of the King. He then gave himself up to literary and, more especially, antiquarian studies and died in 1650.

Between 1619 and 1636 he kept a diary, and for a few years again at a later date. This diary he wrote up and left in the form of an autobiographical note. It therefore comes very near the limit where diary becomes autobiography, but after a prefatory chapter or two he retains the diary form, often copying several pages from the original diary. Although repetitions and the awkwardness of diary style may have been avoided by this re- vision, it is doubtful whether he improved his original notes, because the final result is heavy and often tedious and lacks the freshness and spontaneity of momentary writing.

The heaviness is added to by the fact that Sir Simonds was deeply religious, and took himself very seriously. He comes dangerously near being a prig.

The diary deals largely with historical events and is of value to historians as the careful opinion of a contemporary observer. His estimate of James I is on the whole favourable, owing to the fact that he compares him with his successor. He gives a char- acteristic picture of the King going down to open Parliament in 1621.

First he spoke often and lovingly to the people standing thick and threefold on all sides to behold him, " God bless ye ! God bless ye ! " contrary to his

71

72 ENGLISH DIARIES

former hasty and passionate custom which often in his sudden distemper

would bid a p or a plague on such as flocked to see him. Secondly, though

the windows were filled with many great ladies as he rode along yet that he spake to none of them but to the Marquis of Buckingham's mother and wife : that he spake particularly and bowed to the Count of Gondomar the Spanish Ambassador ; and f otu-thly looking up to one window as he passed, full of

gentlewomen or ladies, all in yellow bands, he cried out aloud " A p take

ye ! are ye there ? " at which being much ashamed they all with<^ew them- selves suddenly from the window.

D'Ewes expressed special admiration for Prince Henry, Charles I's elder brother, " a prince rather addicted to martial studies and exercises than to golf, tennis or other boy's play." His bias against Bacon is very marked : "his vices were so stupendous and great as they utterly obscured and out-poised his virtues." He gives a charming description of Henrietta Maria :

On Thursday I went to Whitehall piirposely to see the Queen which I did fully all the time she sat at dimier and perceived her to be a most absolute deUcate lady after I had exactly surveyed aU the features of her face much enlivened by her radiant and sparkling black eye. Besides, her deportment amongst her women was so sweet and humble and her speech and looks to her other servants so mild and gracious as I could not abstain from divers deep- pitched sighs to consider that she wanted the knowledge of the true religion.

His puritanical religious views gradually estrange him from the Court in Charles's reign and his disapproval of Buckingham makes him go the length of not only defending but almost excusing Felton. He regards Laud " a little, low, red-faced man of mean parentage," with the strongest misgivings, greatly preferring a virtuous Papist to the men " who call themselves Protestants as Bishop Laud and Bishop Wren and their wicked adherents." Needless to say he condemns Ship-money and prays daily that the Sovereign may abohsh " this lamentable and fatal taxation."

Much of his time is taken up with antiquarian research. Not only does he transcribe all the Journals of Parliament of Queen Ehzabeth's reign, but he is perpetually examining Escheat Rolls, Communia Rolls, Plea Rolls and all kinds of registers and deeds. Hours upon hours he spends in this way. The vast histories he projected, however, never materialised, and indeed he evidently had httle power of exposition or narrative. Many of the fruits of his industry in the shape of transcripts from ancient records are contained in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum.

D'Ewes, however, does not only deal with pubUc affairs, and we can discover a good deal about the man in the more domestic pages of the diary even in its amended form.

He is very proud of his pedigree. " I ev^ accounted it a great

SIR SIMONDS D'EWES 73

i^ outward blessing to be well descended," and he spends much time in tracing his family history and that of his wife. Cambridge did not suit him.

The main thing which made me even weary of the College was that swearing, drinking, rioting and hatred of all piety and virtue under false and adulterated nicknames did abound there and in all the imiversity.

He is in every way exemplary, or anyhow says he is :

My love to the study of the law began now to increase very much, being resonably well able to command what I read and finding daily use for it, I exceedingly desired knowledge.

When the Prince Elector comes over Sir Simonds visits him and modestly writes :

I gave him such solid and faithful advice for the recovery of his lost coimtry and dominions as he highly approved and might I believe ere this have been resettled in them had it laid in his own power to have put my advice into execution.

In fact, on one occasion he is obliged to admit that " self-con- ceit and pride of heart " were faults " to both of which I was naturally prone and inclined,"

To his " dear and tender mother," who died when he was a boy, he had been passionately devoted, but with his father he was apt to have rather acrimonious disputes. First over his desire to have a private chamber of his own for a study, which desire " by reason of my father's unreasonable and ever-to-be-condoled tena- city and love of money " was thwarted at first. Later over his allowance ;

Coming to my father on Saturday Oct. 6 to receive and demand that small stipend he allowed me he denied me part of it upon some pretended defalca- tions. This so amazed me being vmprovided of most necessaries and consider- ing also that he kept from me an estate of five or six thousand poimds of mine own that I unawares expressed my gTief unto him somewhat unadvisedly, at which he grew so extremely offended with me as he was never before that time nor after it so as I spake but once with him for about the space of five weeks ensuing although I resided near him all that time.

Again, after his marriage, when his father wanted part of the jointure to his wife to be released owing to the fact that she had no children, there is a sharp dispute between them. When his father dies he becomes more charitably disposed towards him, but he cannot resist some comment on his faiUngs :

I have much confidence also that he did seriously set himself during all that time (when he was ill) to search and try his own heart, which had been

74 ENGLISH DIARIES

too much set upon the business and profits of his present life and to prepare his way by a lively faith and a true repentance.

Sir Simonds married Anne Clapton. Love and courtship do not enter into the proceedings, which were arranged by contract between the two fathers. We do not learn anything about his wife's character, though he frequently expresses devotion to her. He earnestly desired a male heir, but although she had a number of children they none of them survived. He recites the ever- recurring death of these infants with great resignation, attributing i it all to God's will. By Elizabeth Willoughby, his second wife, he had a son who survived him.

He was very strict in his religious practices. Constantly we read ; " I spent the day in a private religious fast and humilia- tion," or " Saturday I devoted to a family humiliation and religious fasting with my wife and most of our people." It was his religion indeed that was the motive power behind his politics. As a young man he was once assailed by serious doubts and " fell into a strong and dangerous temptation." The occasion of this was the death of a friend. His reflections on it made him fall upon " two dangerous rocks of atheism." He argues the whole problem at length and finally coftcludes :

I found that those unriily thoughts of atheism were the devils engines and the fruits of infidelity not to be dallied withall or disputed, but to be avoided prayed against and resisted by a strong and lively faith.

And for the rest of his hfe his rigid orthodoxy and puritanical strictness never leaves him.

However, with his own parson in Suffolk, Mr. Danford, he has the most embittered relations. We are never told quite plainly what the cause of controversy is and we cannot help feehng some sympathy with Mr. Danford, who was brought into such close contact with the self-righteous and sanctimonious baronet.

Mr, Danford practised daily new and malicious devices to vex us so as we feared we should at last be driven for very peace and quiet's sake to forsake our mansion house and dwelling. . . . Loath I am to mention his malicious practices but that the necessity of setting down a full and true relation of the good and evil events and passages of mine own life enforceth me to it.

I might have bestowed more time on my precious studies had I not been interrupted by Mr. Danford's wicked malice. . . . For though he had for- borne to catechise in the afternoons upon Smidays merely out of his spleen to me and had sometimes leavened his forenoon sermons with some malicious sprinklings — yet did he never break out into an open invective and a profana-

I

I

ft

SIR SIMONDS D'EWES 75

tion of the church and pulpit with downright raihng till Siuiday April 13 of which wicked discourse unworthy the name of a sermon, I then took notes.

He complains to Dr. Corbett, Bishop of Norwich, who however seems 'to have taken Mr. Danford's side and the " malicious prac- tices " continue, so that he removes his wife, when she is about to have a child, to his stepmother's house, " so as I might not be vexed with his cross and mischievous oppositions." We find, however, Mr. Danford being called in at a later date to christen one of his dying infants, and it is to be hoped that on that occasion anyhow there were no " malicious sprinklings."

Sir Simonds' own health did not trouble him to any extent. He only records one occasion on which a series of " aguish fist " made him very ill. His wife's many confinements and her even- tual death, which he attributes to the negligence of his stepmother, Lady Denton, caused him great anxiety. Religion and study throughout are his solace and comfort in the terribly solemn business of living.

Sir Simonds did not write with a view to publication. But considering himself a person of no small importance, he desired that this account of his life should be handed down to his descend- ants as a memorial of their illustrious ancestor.

The diary, together with his will and family letters, edited by J. O. Halhwell, was published in 1845.

SIR HENRY SLINGSBY

IF special notice is taken of this diary, which only covers ten years very cursorily, it is not because of the circumstances which made Sir Henry Slingsby an eye-witness of and partici- pant in the defeat of Charles I's armies, nor because of his own tragic fate some years later, but because the diary itself is a document which discloses an attractive personality and which in its literary style and lively presentation of domestic as well as public events seems to claim a more than usual amount of attention.

Sir Henry Slingsby was born in 1601 ; he married Barbara Bellasyse, daughter of Viscount Falconbridge, in 1631. He sat in Parhament for Knaresborough and was one of the fifty-nine members who voted against the Bill for the attainder of Strafford. He adopted the King's cause against Parliament ; was with Charles at York, fought at Marston Moor, was present at Naseby, and at the surrender of Newark. In 1655 he was implicated in a Royalist plot at Hull. He was taken to London, tried, con- victed, and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The sentence was altered to one of execution and he was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1658. Sir Henry lived in a time of public calamity, his natural preference would have been for the tranquil employ- ments of a country life. He shows a high degree of learning, and often quotes passages and takes illustrations from the classics.

The diary begins in 1638 and continues for ten years. Charles I's execution is mentioned in one of the last entries. Sometimes he seems to write on the day, but more often he summarises periods. In diary writing he took Montaigne as a model. He describes Montaigne's Day Book or memorial of household affairs and adds :

Hereupon I follow'd the advise of Michael de Montaigne to sett down in this Book such accidents as befell me not that I make my study of it but rather a recreation at vacant times without observing any time, method, or order in my wrighting or rather scribbling. i

76

SIR HENRY SLINGSBY tt

Like the great majority of diarists, Slingsby is far more effective when he is describing domestic matters than when he deals with mihtary engagements and the pohtical turmoil of the Civil War. He has a happy knack of describing people. He records the death from falhng cliimneys during a gale of Edward Osborn, a nephew of his wife's :

He was but of a slender body and indifferently shot out in height, his limbs small but sinewy, his hair of a light colour and long and curled, his disposition gentle and sober, of a good meine and carriage of body, loving and affable to everyone and thus was he taken away before he had experience of the vanities and vices of the Times.

Here is his account of Francis Oddy, a most useful man in Sir Henry's household, who acted as upholsterer, " to furnish the Lodgin rooms and dress them up," and also as caterer :

He is of very low stature, his head little, and his hair cut short, his face lean and full of wi-inkles, his complection such that it shows he hath endured all wethers : his disposition not suitable with the rest of his fellow servants which both either by diligence breed envy or else thro' plain dealing Stir up variance : and having a working head is in continual debate.

We learn a good deal about his servants, he takes a great interest in them. He has sixteen men servants and eight women servants. When his cook, George Taylor, marries, he writes some reflections on his experience of cooks :

This cook hath been the freest from disorder of 5 several Coolis which I have had since I became a housekeeper ; some of which hath been without all measure disorder 'd. When they have sometimes stolen abroad I should not hear of them for 3 or 4 days together : yet commonly I never part'd with any of them tiU I made them as glad to be gone as I woiild have them. I never grew passionate with them nor threatened them much if I f omad them service- able otherwise but still sought to win them from the habits of drinking, by fair means, willing to accept their future promise of amendment. ... I required not of them so much their dressing the meat having a woman servant that took into her custody all the provision and delivered it out : so that I need not fear the cook embezeling, especially if he be a married man as this cook Samuell was ; and for their cm-iosity in the art of cooking I do not much value, not have we much use for it in our country housekeeping unless sometimes when we have a meeting of friends and then only to comply with the fashion of the times, to show myself answerable to what is expected, and not out of any love unto excessive feasting which now a days is very much practised.

There is also a note about his gardener :

The last of October dy'd my Guardener Peter Clark after 12 or 14 years service to my father and me ; he was for no curiosity in Guardening, but

78 ENGLISH DIARIES

exceeding laborioiis in grafting, setting and sewing : which extream labour shortened his days ; he languish'd many years and so handl'd as he was nor could any judge what he ail'd ; sometimes he would say he was bewitch'd and at other times that he had a great worm in his gutts that did knaw and torment him which made me when he dy'd send for a chirurgeon from York to embowell him ; but no such thing appeared.

Slingsby is affectionate about his wife, who unfortunately is a great sufferer and gets little or no relief from the various doctors he employs ; he says of her :

She is by nature timorous and compassionate which makes her full of prayer on the behalf of others. I have sometimes been awakened in the night when I have heard her praying to herself as she never mist that duty in the day time.

He is called home and finds her very ill :

It did at first puzeU the Physitians to understand what she ail'd ; that thought it had been the cholick, then the Cardiaca Passio, then the Jaundice, then the Spleen.

One doctor after another visits her : Dr. Parker who gives her a vomit, Dr. Micklethwate who declares it is jaundice. Dr. Frires who is a speciaHst for spleen, and prescribes very elaborate medicines, including hot beer at meals, which are all carefully set down. The latter he describes thus :

This man is of great fame for his skiU and cures which he doth not a little brag of who tells you of his £50 and £100 cures.

Later on he goes to another and still greater man, a consultant, Sir Theodore Mayerne.

He seldom went to any, for he was corpulent and vmwieldy ; and then again he was rich and the King's physician and a linight which made him more costly to deal withaU.

Yet another doctor he tries, but again in vain, and his wife dies " after she had endur'd a world of misery." He writes of her with charming affection and without a trace of sentimentality :

The loss of her by death is beyond expression both to her children and all that knew her ; but chiefly to myself who hath enjoy'd happy days in the company and society which now I find a want of ; she was a woman of very sweet disposition, pleasant and affable ; and when anything moved her to anger or that she conceived any injury done to her she would easily forgive and be the first that would offer termes of reconsilement ; and though she was passionate it was not lasting but soon passed over.

I

SIR HENRY SLINGSBY 79

He hesitates to go to his home, Redhouse at Scaglethorp, after her death ;

I had not been yet at my own house, not abiding to come where I should find a miss of my dear wife and where every room will call her to my memory and renew my grief I therefore staid at Alne at my sister Bethell's house until I had better digest'd my grief.

It was while he was here that he received his commission to command the " trainbands of the City of York." But before we come to his public experiences his references to his son Thomas may be quoted. He was evidently a believer in early education. Before the child was four years old he could " tell the Latin words for the parts of his body and of his cloaths," but Sir Henry adds when he is engaging a tutor ;

I find him duller to learn this year than last (he was not yet five) which would discourage one but that I think the cause to be his too much minding Play which takes oH his mind from his books ; therefore they do ill that do foment and cherish that hmnour in a child and by inventing new sports increase his desire to play which caviseth a great aversion to their book ; and their mind being at first season'd with vanity will not easily loose the relish of it.

The next year he buys him a suit of clothes,

being the first breeches and doublet that he ever had and made by my tailor Mr. Miller ; it was too soon for him to wear them being but 5 years old, but that his mother had a desire to see him in them, how proper a man he would be.

Slingsby has a way of branching off into general reflections and aphorisms after he has recorded some particular event. On the subject of ambition and ostentation he says :

We judge our actions lost if they be not set out to show like Mountebanks that show the operation of their skill upon scaffolds in view of all passengers that more notice may be taken of them ; so ambitious are we of renown that goodness, moderation, equity, constancy and such qualities are little set by.

He deplores the morals of the age in which he Uves :

The approbation of others in so corrupt an age is an uncertain foundation to build vertuous actions upon ; that which is commendable is not always learnt by example of the most part, God keep every man from being an honest man according to the description is now a days made of it ; that which was account'd vice is now grown in fashion and nothing count'd vice.

And this on war ;

There is no stability in anything of this world ; when things are once advanced to such a height, it is not to be expected they will there settle but rather return to the same degree they were. But all is lost if warr continue

80 ENGLISH DIARIES

among us ; one year's continuance shall make a greater desolation than 20 years shall recover.

Yet warlike operations were to occupy so much of his time. He partakes in them out of a sense of duty and loyalty to the King, but in the middle of them he confesses, " My own disposition is to love quietness," and occasionally he snatches a day at home. His descriptions of the engagements were evidently written some time afterwards. They are often difficult to follow, and though detailed are not very illuminating.

In marching about the accommodation was not always of the best :

At old Radnor the King lay in a poor low Chamber and my Ld of Linsey and others by the Kitching fire on hay ; no better were we accomodat'd for victuals ; which makes me remember this passage ; when the King was at his supper eating a pullet and a piece of cheese the room without was full but the mens' stomachs empty for want of meat ; the good wife troubl'd with continual calling upon her for victuals and having it seems but the one cheese comes into the room where the King was and very soberly ask if the King had done with the cheese for the Gentlemen without desired it.

There are one or two httle sketches of Charles :

He kept his hours most exactly both for his exercises and for hia dispatches as also his hours for admitting all sorts to come to speak with him. You might know where he would be at any hour from his rising which was very early to his walk he took in the garden and so to Chappie and dinner ; so after dinner if he went not abroad he had his hours for wrighting and discourcing, or chess playing or Temiis.

Here I do wonder at the admirable temper of the King whose constancy was such that no perils never so unavoidable covild move him to astonishment ; but that, still he set the same face and settl'd covmtenance upon what adverse fortitne soever befell him : and neither was exalt'd in prosperity nor deject'd in adversity ; which was the more admirable in him seeing that he had no other to have recoui'se luato for councill and assistance but mvist bear the whole bvu"den upon his shoulders.

Slingsby makes a flying visit home disguised and at night time : " scarce any in my own house knowing that I was there." The record of fighting is of course one of continual disaster. The last entries are very scrappy. There is a note on the King's execution :

But not withstanding all his prayers and intreaties they would not release him : and while I remained concealed in my house I covdd hear of his going to Holmby, to the Isle of Wight and to Whitehall at last ; where he end'd his good life upon the 30 of January 1648-9. I hear heu me ; quid heu me ? humana perpessi sumus. Thus I end'd these conunentaries or book of remembrance beginning in the year 1638 and ending in the year 1648.

SIR HENRY SLINGSBY 81

He then adds some notes about his garden and about the " great flouds as seldome hath been known."

When he was in prison in 1658 Sir Henry Slingsby wrote A Father's Legacy to his Sons, which was a sort of moral and philosophic injunction. Clarendon says he was " in the first rank of the gentlemen of Yorkshire " and " was a gentleman of a good understanding but of a very melanchohc nature." " When he was brought to die he spent very little time in discourse ; but told them ' he was to die for being an honest man of which he was very glad.' "

Extracts from the diary were published by Sir Walter Scott m 1806. A more or less complete edition of it, edited by the Rev. D. Parsons, was published in 1836.

6

SAMUEL PEPYS

BY general consent the diary of Samuel Pepys may be awarded the first place among English diaries. It fulfills all the conditions of what a diary should be. It is written with scrupulous regularity daily and is therefore quite spon- taneous. Detailed narrative of public events, intimate domestic incidents and candid self-revelation all find a place in it. Such are the powers of narration and observation of the writer that it may certainly be said that any page from Pepys occurring in anyone else's diary would be worth quoting in full.

We are concerned with Pepys as a diarist, not wath his official or political career. But it will be well to give a brief outline of his life.

Samuel Pepys was born in 1633. His father, John Pepys, was a London tailor, who subsequently inherited an estate at Bramp- ton, near Huntingdon. Samuel, the fifth child of a large family, was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge. All we hear of his university career is that on October 22, 1653, he was publicly admonished with another undergraduate for having been " scan- dalously overserved with drink." In 1655 he married Elizabeth Marchant, daughter of a French Huguenot exile. He started his official career as secretary to his cousin, Edward Montague, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, through whose influence he was ap-" pointed " clerk of the acts " in the Navy Office and afterwards clerk of the Privy Seal. In 1668 he delivered a speech at the Bar of the House of Commons in defence of the Navy, which had been violently attacked after the war with Holland. This gave him the ambition of becoming a member of Parliament. After an interval during which he became secretary of the Admiralty, Pepys was elected in 1679 member for Harwich. He had been unjustly suspected of popery and was also accused of betraying naval secrets to the French. This arose out of his friendship with the Duke of