Friday Oct. 28th.
Drove with Henrietta to Eastnor. I think I would upon the whole have preferred going by myself; because I want to say to Lady Margaret what I shd. not like to say before a third person—for fear of rejected addresses. But Lady Margaret was not alone—& therefore no harm was done by my not being so.
A great deal con poor Miss Gibbons. Lady Margaret “had a regard for her”. Ah! that had!— It was not meant for the affections!!--
I knew that Lady Margaret would be angry; because I knew her papistical attachment to the Church of England. It is exactly that. She considers the church as an interpreter of scripture,—& in a maternal point of view!— Mr. James Cocks the red & talkative made an amusing enough contrast to Mr. James Cocks the white & silent. But they agreed in shaking their heads over their defected cousin.[1] Old Lady Somers was there also.[2] Beauty in the past tense,—& agreableness (as people go) in the present!— Poor Mrs. Selwyn called in the course of our visit. She is about to set off for Brighton where she will remain two or three months with Mr. & Mrs. Blizzard[3]—to meet, as Mr. Selwyn suggests, the cholera morbus. She is less disfigured than, I imagined—and yet I could not judge thro’ her cloak.[4] I wish she had not talked & laughed so much!— There was something out of keeping in it!—
We called for a moment at Mrs. Watson’s,[5] who was out. Goodnatured Fates!—
Lady Margaret said with a smiling face that she had been glad to hear of there being more probability of our not being lost to the neighbourhood—at least not so soon! The smile vanished when she heard my answer. I could say only, that I believed things remained as they were.
We got home at about four. A letter from Papa to Henrietta—& not a word in it!— how extraordinary! Poor Bummy does not know what to do. A parcel too from Ruby Cottage, conveyed to Ledbury by Mr. Curzon, & containing North’s Plato,[6] & a note from Mrs. Boyd—but with no message about the book. Mr. Boyd when I saw him last, wondered at my having only Fo[r]ster’s Selections from Plato,[7] & at my not applying to Papa about procuring another edition of him. Now is it possible, that he means to give me this little book? I hope—I hope not!— It contains besides what I have read before, only the X book De legibus, & the 2d. of Alcibiades. I began to read De legibus.
Mrs. Boyd gives a bad account of Miss Bordman’s father: a better one of Annie. I cant say that I am uneasy about Annie. No letter from Alençon! Mr. Biscoe’s evergreen love has withered—& like all earthly eternal things, is at an end. Is not that Annie’s own fault?— Mrs. Boyd speaks of having heard from Miss Cockburn,[8] & of one of the Cheltenham houses which were desiderata last May, not being taken. I suppose Mrs. Boyd is very anxious indeed, to make me so,—but she shall not succeed.
1. James Somers Cocks (1790–1856), Prebendary of Hereford and Worcester, brother of Lady Margaret, and their father’s cousin James Cocks, M.P. for Reigate; it seems likely that the epithet “red and talkative” applied to the politician rather than the priest, but we have no proof of this. No relationship has been traced between the Cocks and Gibbons families that would explain the use of “defected cousin.”
2. Anne, née Pole-Carew (1752–1833), widow of Charles Cocks, Lord Somers, and step-mother of the 1st Earl.
3. Thomas Blizard and his wife left Donnington Hall, near Ledbury, in 1829, to live in Brighton, and were presented with a piece of plate as a mark of esteem (John Biddulph’s Diary, 6 April 1829, ms at Hereford City Library). “No medical man ever gave more time and attention to the Sick & infirm even when paid for their Services” (Biddulph Diary, 22 July 1832).
4. This reference cannot be explained; we trust it has no connection with the rather chilling entry in John Biddulph’s Diary for 12 July 1829: “Mrs Selwyn at Dinner—poor woman she is grieving at parting with her Husband who hates her very undeservedly, & will probably do her some bodily harm if she returns to him which she is resolved to do.” Her husband, Congreve Selwyn, was one of the medical men of Ledbury.
5. Wife of G. Watson, Esq., of Bronsil, quite near Eastnor Castle.
6. [Hon. John North, ed.], Platonis de Rebus Divinis Dialogi Selecti (Cambridge, 1673).
7. Lot 990 of Browning Collections was her copy of Platonis Dialogi V, ed. Nathaniel Forster (Oxford, 1752).
8. A friend of Mrs. Boyd, who ran a small boarding school at Charlton Villa, Cheltenham.
