Wednesday. June 22.
Very soon after breakfast Eliza Cliffe came; but still sooner Bummy said to me laughingly “Are you going to see Mr. Boyd today?” And laughing was my answer— “Yes! if you will come too.” Then grave was her observation “But you know you can go tomorrow”. “Go tomorrow. Oh I think not.” (Oh I wish I could! was what my heart assided [sic]). “Why certainly Mr. Boyd may not like your going quite so often”. How cd. I help saying “If I thought Mr. Boyd did not like my going very often, I wd. not go at all”.
Eliza arrived; & Bummy ran up stairs to give me pre-warning that in the case of any horrible visitors arriving, I was to keep quiet & say nothing before her. Eliza says that Knibb will give me books to the amount of only £2—10 in exchange for those I wish to part with. I wish so much to part with them, & wish so much more to get Heyne’s Pindar[1] &c that I wd. close with his proposal. But everybody thinks me a goose for giving away my books (as they call it); & Eliza insists on trying another bookseller at Worcester, which she is to do next Saturday per carrier. Well! she may do it!—but I MUST have Heyne’s Pindar—coute qu’il coute!!—so if Deighton[2] wont, Knibb shall, for EBB will—
Eliza painted me & dined with us at one, & drank tea with us at six, & afterwards we went down the carriage road with her, I riding her poney at a slow pace. I rode round to the old gate, & then dismounting, she rode on, & we walked home. A lovely calm soft evening!—
I wrote a guarded note to Mrs. Best expressive of my interest in her nothing-particular tract. And I wrote a few lines to Mr. Boyd enclosing Paganinis criticism—or rather a criticism on Paganini cut out of the newspaper[3]—for Eliza to take with her & read. Eliza is to call there while Mrs. Cliffe calls on Mrs. Selwyn.[4] When Bummy heard this, she said—“Really ALL the young ladies in the neighbourhood seem to me to be in the habit of going to see that poor man”. I did not say anything, but thought something.
This was an idle day with me—respecting study. Mrs. Peyton called here & stayed a short eternity, which seemed to me anything but short. In the midst of her visit, I heard Minny was come, & ran up to see her. Dear Minny is looking thin, & began to cry when I kissed her, But her low spirits seem more on our account than her father’s, who is much better than she expected or could have expected to find him. Mrs. Cliffe wishes us to spend a long day at Mathon next week.[5] The petition was ordered to be laid on the table[6]—that is, Bummy evaded it for the present by saying that we wd. think of it, & wait to hear from Papa. I wd. a thousand times rather go to Mathon than to the Bartons; & Mrs. Peyton was teazing us kindly about going to drink tea there. How they have beseeched us about tea.
Te veniente die, te decedente canebant!—[7]
1. Christian Gottlob Heyne, ed. Pindari Carmina (Göttingen, 1773).
2. Henry Deighton, Bookseller, of 53 High-street, Worcester.
3. For the letter, see BC, 2, 313–315.
4. The wife of Congreve Selwyn, surgeon; he was in charge of the Dispensary in Ledbury.
5. We have not traced any reference by E.B.B. to the home of the Cliffes more specific than this general reference to Mathon. Mrs. Cliffe’s husband, in his will dated 1809, described himself as being “of the Shipend House, Mathon,” which in the 18th century had been the richest and most important house in the vicinity, but his obituary notices in 1812 described him as being of Mathon House, Mathon, and newspaper references at the time of the Diary continued to associate the Cliffes with both houses. Shipend House was shown on older maps, but those contemporary with the Diary showed only Mathon House, in virtually the same location. This leads us to believe that early in the 19th century the family house was altered and renamed Mathon House, but we cannot be positive about this. The Cliffes’ association with Mathon terminated in the 1870’s, and present descendants of the family to whom we have spoken were unable to provide any additional information about the Cliffes’ house at Mathon. The drive from Hope End to Mathon House was approximately 3½ miles, over inferior road surfaces.
6. The parliamentary phase for indefinite postponement.
7. A play on IV, 466 of Virgil’s Georgics: “Te veniente die, te decedente canebat.” Using the assonance of tea and te, and by making the verb plural, E.B.B. here conveys the jibe “of tea they sang, at the coming of the day and at its passing.”