ground of Kearns’ that he was so unruly about in spring, 27threatening James Ryan and his whole family, getting Counsel’s opinion, going to the Sessions, and using such language himself and his daughters to everyone whom he thinks fit to consider of the opposite faction. Altogether he is a regular savage, and threatens to be very troublesome.
Miss Gardiner called upon me in great distress to know how to conduct herself in the following circumstances: since the measles broke out, she has never got her school gathered again. On going to enquire for her different scholars, she was told they should not return, for that I had burned all their Roman Catholic catechisms, that their priest was informed of it, that he was exceedingly angry and determined to make a great noise about it. She wanted to know whether she should call upon him to refute their folly, but, after considering a minute, I told her not. I bid her take no notice of the story whatever, and if the priest called on her to make enquiries, to take him extremely coolly, merely to say the tale was not true, and that there were no catechisms in the school, none being allowed to be taught there by the rules. I think it not unlikely that the tale may have originated with the priests themselves. They do not like my school, they do not like the knowledge the children gain there, nor the attachment they feel for me. They are beginning to find their power shaking, and they are trying desperate plans to retain it. How difficult it is to do good here. Much can’t be done in this generation.
19. Finished six shifts and six nightcaps and sent them to Mr. Foster for the six old women on the Church list and have determined on endeavouring to alter the arrangement concerning the charity money. At present it is given in single shillings to any of them who beg hard or on the first Sunday in the month they each get three or four. They are all in rags, all starving, lodge where they can, and spend this money on the people who let them in and in tea, snuff, etc. I will myself give no money to be so misapplied, and as our Vicar takes no sort of trouble with his parish nor any one else, as I have the Curate’s ear, I’ll try and do what good I can, and for a beginning give them all linen instead of putting a sum of money in the Box on Christmas day. Went to Peggy Nary, who is much in want of Christmas comforts. She is Hal’s pensioner, but I look after her for him, and before many days she will be very comfortable.
25. Christmas day. What a pity—I forgot teetotalism when I mixed the puddings, and not one of the outside men would taste them. Now when those unruly people have such self-command where they think it a sin to yield to temptation, is it not plain that properly educated they would be a fine and a moral race, almost equally plain that those thousand crimes they do commit they have not been taught to consider sins.
26. A regular réveillée—The Wren—under our windows. What can have been the origin of this strange custom? It is St. Stephen’s day—the first martyr, who was stoned to death—and what has a little harmless bird to do with that? They hunt the poor little thing to death, then set it on a pole, fix a kind of bower round it, and then carry it all over the country with musick and dancing and all of them dressed up with all the rags and ribbons and bits of coloured paper they can collect. This morning there were no young women of the party as there used to be. Maybe they don’t find it merry enough now that whiskey a’n’t in fashion.
A visit from Mr. Moore and chatting on from one subject to another, he and I got quite confidential; he lamented his dereliction of duty, said he was firmly resolved to ‘turn over a new leaf’. ‘But you have said so so often.’ ‘Never to you,’ etc. He then went into some very painful family details, which did in some degree excuse his neglect of his parish duties, and appeared altogether so touched with the omissions of his proper business that I am in hopes he will seriously set to work to repair them. And few could do it better, for his heart is kind, his temper gentle, his judgement good, his piety sincere and his manner delightful, yet I fear to trust him, he is indolent and facile, and unless his wife be impressed with the feeling of duty belonging to their station, I doubt his keeping his resolution.
31. Thus ends 1840. A year of quiet happiness spent entirely in our pleasant home, and in which by prudence we have managed to get before the world again. And all well. God be thanked for every mercy.
1. Edited by his sons Robert, Isaac and Samuel, the ‘Life’ (1838) of William Wilberforce the philanthropist (1759– 1833) was, for the dnb, ‘no model biography.’
2. Shuja-ul-mulk Sadozai, Shah Shuja, deposed 1809 but restored by force of arms during this First Afghan War; the key fort of Ghazni fell in July 1839.
3. After the death of Eyre Tilson of Coote, Barbara, née Meredyth, married the fourth Earl of Milltown (1799–1866).
4. The ‘Bed-Chamber Crisis’ of May 1839 ended Peel’s brief first ministry. Her marriage to her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819–1866) took place on 10. February 1840.
5. The ‘Life’ (written by his son R.J.M) of the celebrated political theorist (1765–1832), who was a friend and contemporary of her father, was published in 1836.
6. The H.L. knew India before her marriage and Sir James was Recorder of Bombay (1803–1811); both contrasted it with what they recalled of Edinburgh in its ‘Golden Age’.
7. The Rev. Theobald Matthew was a tireless campaigner in the cause of total abstinence from alcohol.
8. This is the pen name of the anonymous author whose savage attacks between 1769 and 1772 on George iii’s ministers were widely read.
9. The English Poor Law, basing relief of poverty on the unpopular workhouses, was extended to Ireland in 1838; an elected Board of Guardians were responsible to the rate payers. See Coriolanus Ii: 177–9:
‘He that depends/Upon your favours swims with fins of lead/and hews down oaks with rushes.’
10. The Rev. Sydney Smith (1771–1845) was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review; his collected works were published in 1839.
11. Memorials of the Life of Sir Walter Scott by John Gibson Lockhart, his son-in-law, was published 1836–8.
12. John Clerk, Lord Eldin, built up a large art collection in his house in Picardy Place; after his death it was auctioned and to the disaster of a floor of the building collapsing was added the ignomy that many of the pictures were fakes. His natural daughter was to be governess to the Milltowns and then the Smiths.
13. The Scottish Judge Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), well known as the founder and guiding light of the Edinburgh Review.
14. Deputy Clerk Register of Scotland (1806–39).
15. Jane Cranstoun (who married Godfrey Wenceslas Count of Purgstall) was an early confidante of Sir Walter.
16.