Friday. Sept. 2d.
Aspettare e non venire being one of the tre cose a far morire,[1] I was in an expiring state until 9 oclock this morning. Ordered the carriage at a quarter to 8: & past 9 when I sate [sic] off!! If I had been Jupiter, Billy wd. have been thunderstruck, as sure as I was Jupiter!—
Got to Malvern at breakfast time meo more. The feminine gender observed that they, in their joy to see me, buzzed about me like bees. I hope there was no humming as well as buzzing!— But never mind, if there were! Mr. Boyd came to the breakfast room door, to call Miss Boyd, & Mrs. Boyd cried out “You dont know who is here!!” After he had known it, he walked up &down in front of the house: but I was not angry at that! No indeed I was not,—tho’ I have memorabiliazed it!— He knew that I always stayed & must stay for a few minutes with the majority, before the minority had me all to himself. I went up stairs very soon to his room, & we talked on religious subjects & several others, & I had scold the second, for running down the hill: and then we sate down to Gregory. I read two very long passages out of the hexameter & pentameter poem, beginning Δυσμορος.[2] How happy, how very happy I was, when I was reading it! A thunderstorm came, & in the midst of it, Miss Bordman. She came to beg me to go into the drawing room that I might be protected by numbers: good generalship, Mr. Boyd said, to get me away. She wd. have gone out of the room, but he called her back to say something about the Socinians, & there she remained for a full half hour .. I abdicated my chair in her favour, & sate vis a vis to her & the lightening!— Now did Mr. Boyd wish her to stay or not?—or was it good nature in the abstract, on his part? I am a goose.
After dinner, before des[s]ert was finaled, a message came for me from him. I was very glad to obey the summons, & did so immediately. He showed me over again, some of his antiquities in the form of Editions of the Fathers. A Gregory whch. will be 300 years old in 19 years— A Basil whch. will be 300 years old in 18 years. Another Basil edited by Erasmus—but with his preface torn out. A Gregory Nyssen which will be 300 yrs. old, in one year! I offered him my Rivinus (the anthologia)—[3] Rejected. Carriage came at 7; & as I went away I was thanked for coming so often. “I am very much obliged to you”, Mr. Boyd said. Very much obliged to me!!—
That Dawes was certainly born to torment me, as well as to elucidate the classics. In the midst of my good intentions of conveying him back to Ruby Cottage, I let him slip out of the carriage. Ecce the effect of reverie-ing, which I was doing all the way from home to Malvern!— I am a goose—for the second time of affirming!— Enquired at Benbow’s[4] & both the turnpikes, in vain. Now what am I to do? Send to Worcester or to Papa for another copy?
Got home at 5 minutes to 8. Capital time—& good humoured reception.
Played on the guitar to please the people who asked me, till my voice was worn out.
I wish I were going to Malvern tomorrow!--
No letters today---
I forget the first two lines of Mr. Boyd’s epigram on Miss Wall, repeated to me today. (N.B. She & Mr. Coventry[5] WERE going to be married.) Did they run this way? (I dont mean Miss W & Mr. C)
Since of all women, I aver,
None can more heartless soulless be!
If Coventry wont go to her,
Why let her go to Coventry!—
another—
“Coventry weds, to please the eye”
Her vulgar mother’s heard to bawl!
Then who can doubt the reason why
He thus delays to wed Miss Wall.
1. Perhaps a slight misquotation of “Aspettare e non venire é cosa da morire” (“Tis death to wait for that which never comes”)—Giordano Bruno, Candelaio, IV.i.1.
2. “Ill-fated”; the initial word of the poem “De Animæ Suæ Calamitatibus Carmen Lugubre” (GNO, II, 68–69).
3. Andreas Rivinus, Anthologia (Gotha, 1650).
4. “The Admiral Benbow,” an inn close to Ruby Cottage, (now “The Hornyold Arms”).
5. Not positively identified, but probably the Hon. and Rev. Thomas Henry Coventry (1792–1869), 3rd son of the 7th Earl of Coventry, at this time Rector of Croome D’Abitot, about 6½ miles east of Great Malvern, and a bachelor.
