LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
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Passages of a Working Life during Half a Century
Note to Chapter VIII
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Preface
Contents Vol. I
Prelude 1
Prelude 2
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Contents Vol. II
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Note to Chapter XV
Contents Vol. III
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
‣ Note to Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Note to Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Note to Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Index of Persons
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NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII.

As an illustration of the slowness, even in our times, with which Intelligence having no temporary interest—such intelligence as merely opens a question of literary history—excites public curiosity, if promulgated through unusual channels, I give an extract from my “Town and Country Newspaper” of July 21, 1855. Four years after my accidental acquaintance with a book which had been sent, fresh from the press of Sydney to be shown in the Paris Exhibition, the “Edinburgh Review” made the discovery of the same book; and produced an elaborate article which attracted universal notice. The Editor intimated, that if Mr. Croker had obtained the knowledge of such a treasure as had been hidden for many years in one of the offices of a law court in New South Wales, he would have made a voyage to the Antipodes to obtain such rare materials for a new edition of his “Boswell.” No publisher or author took the least notice of my article. It was in vain that I wrote of “Dr. Campbell’s Diary,” “We earnestly trust that it may be reprinted in London, under the Copyright Act which gives protection to our colonial literature.”

“NEW SUPPLEMENT TO BOSWELL’S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

“We apprehend that our present notice will come as a surprise upon many of our readers. After the elaborate editions of Boswell’s Life of Johnson (taken altogether, the most amusing book in our language), with note upon note, collected from every public and private source, it was scarcely
164 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: [Ch. VIII.
to be expected that any new and extensive illustrations would turn up in our day. Such additions to literary or political history often come forth from hiding-places where nobody would have thought of looking for them. Who would expect that Australia should give to England a most curious and valuable Supplement to Boswell, of unquestionable authenticity? Yet such is the case. Searching carefully, in the discharge of our duty, for anything of interest connected with printing, exhibited in the Great Paris Exhibition, we came to a small space in the Colonial Department of the Annexe, where the products of Sydney were open to view. There were a few books, very neatly bound, three or four of which were printed in Sydney. One of these was a translation into blank verse of the prophet Isaiah. Another bore the following title:—

“‘Diary of a Visit to England in 1775, by an Irishman (the Reverend Doctor Thomas Campbell, author of a Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland), and other papers by the same hand. With Notes by Samuel Raymond, M.A., Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Sydney: Waugh and Cox, Publishers, 1854.’

“The Secretary to the Exhibition Commissioners of New South Wales drew our attention particularly to this little book, as being unpublished when he left the colony, and consequently unknown in London; and he obligingly permitted us to borrow it for a few days. We earnestly trust that it may be reprinted in London under the Copyright Act which gives protection to our colonial literature. Meanwhile, we proceed to make our English public acquainted with this interesting work.

“In one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales was recently discovered, by Mr. David Bruce Hutchinson, a Manuscript, hidden behind an old press which had not been moved for years. This was a Diary, written in a clear bold hand, of which the first entry bears date February 23, 1775. It fortunately came into the possession of Mr. Raymond, who appears, from his notes, to have been well acquainted with the literary history of the period. The name of the writer does not appear in his own Diary; but there is
Ch. VIII.] THE THIRD EPOCH. 165
no doubt that he was the Doctor Thomas Campbell of whom Boswell thus writes:—‘On Thursday, 6th April, I dined with him (Dr. Johnson). I mentioned that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London, principally to see Dr. Johnson. He seemed angry at this observation.’ Mr. Croker, in a note upon this passage, quotes Mrs. Thrale’s description of an Irish Dr. Campbell, whom she met at Bath in 1776, and of whom she writes to Johnson, as if he had been unacquainted with the Irishman, describing him as ‘very handsome, hot-headed, loud and lively.’ Mr. Raymond thinks that Mrs. Thrale referred to a different person of the same name. We are not sure of this, for although the Diary of Dr. Thomas Campbell, and the records of Boswell, unquestionably show that Johnson and the Irish clergyman often met in 1775, and several times at Thrale’s house, yet there are passages in the Diary of ‘the Irish Dr. Campbell,’ as Boswell calls him, which are ‘lively’ enough to be attached to such a person as Mrs. Thrale describes. The lady might not have met him in 1775. Our Divine seems to have been ready enough to mix in all companies; and to describe what he saw with a freedom which belonged to the manners of the time when he made his appearance in the fashionable and literary society of London. But that the writer of the Diary was ‘the Irish Dr. Campbell’ of Boswell there can be no doubt.

“‘We commence our extracts with the Editor’s account of the papers which he has so judiciously given to the world:—

“‘How long the Manuscript, now offered to the public, lay in its dusty hiding-place in one of the offices of the Supreme Court of New South Wales I have been unable to find out. How it came there, or how it came to the Colony, I have not been able to ascertain; at all events, sufficient has not been elicited by my inquiries to give any clue to the rightful owner of it, or to interfere with my right by discovery to give it to the public. Should it be attempted to cast any doubt on the authenticity of the manuscript, I would without fear submit it to the most rigid scrutiny; it bears upon its face the impress of being, what for the most part it purports to be, a record of the thoughts, feelings, and occurrences likely to attract the notice of an Irishman on his first visit to London in 1775, and subsequently to Paris in 1787. The writing itself, of which a facsimile is annexed, is quaint, and characteristic of the man, who,
166 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE: [Ch. VIII.
at his first breakfast in England, measured the size of the eggs, which struck him as being much smaller than those of his own country. It betrays, but is certainly not disfigured by, the prejudices of the writer’s class and country. * * * * He appears, during his short visits to England, to have been much noticed by people of rank and station, as well amongst the English, as his own countrymen; and to have been admitted into that literary circle, which, in that day, revolved around the great luminary of learning, and which is so admirably depicted in the pages of Boswell.’

“Having given this general notice of the book before us, we proceed, without much comment, which would be quite unnecessary, to furnish some extracts, to which we affix distinctive headings.”

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