Modern literature: a novel, Volume 3 (of 3)

[1] See Missionary Travels and Adventures through Scotland, published in 1799 by James Haldane and Co. in their Expedition to detach the Scottish Flocks from their established Pastors. Not having the treatise before us, we cannot exactly quote the pages to which the above remark alludes, but, to the best of our remembrance, the scene is the Orkneys, soon after the panegyrising account of the soldier that, having deserted his drum, had betaken himself to preaching, immediately before the chapter wherein an unbeliever is converted to the new faith by stumbling over a cow. From this context, which our imperfect recollection supplies, the reader of the above work will be able to find the illustrative passages.

[2] Not exactly a fool, but a gaping, staring, stupid fellow.

[3] To elderly matrons, who in their youth had given way to sentimental sensibility, stories of love and gallantry are sadly fascinating: they are, to use the language of Ossian, the memory of joys that are past, pleasing, yet melancholy to the soul.

[4] Marlborough was anciently called Cunetio, situated on the side of the river Kennet; its present name was probably derived from the word marle, or chalk, with which the neighbouring hills abound. Its history under the Saxons is unknown. It consists principally of one broad street, and one other from the bridge to the town-hall. It is a corporation, with a mayor, aldermen, burgesses, and town clerk: it sends two members to parliament, and has a weekly market on Saturday. John, surnamed Lackland, (afterwards king,) had a castle here, which, on his revolt from his brother Richard I. was stormed by Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury. In this castle was held the assembly of the states of the kingdom, who passed the famous law for suppressing riots, commonly called, The Statutes of Marlborough. In Camden’s time it was become a heap of ruins, with only a few fragments of walls remaining within the ditch. A mansion was built on the spot by the Earl of Hertford, which, for fifty years, had been let as an inn, called the castle: the keep was converted into a mount, for a summer-house in the garden.

[5] Reading is the most considerable trading town in the county, and contains three parish churches, about two thousand houses, and nine thousand four hundred and twenty inhabitants. Some years since, an act of parliament was obtained to new pave the streets, an improvement which was much wanted; and a new market has been built on the west side of the market place, for the accommodation of butchers, poulterers, &c. in the most convenient manner, and first opened for public use in December, 1800. The Kennet, in passing through the town, besides the main stream, which is navigable for barges, throws off two branches, on which there are some considerable flour-mills.

[6] A handicraft methodist preacher prayed for a pair of breeches; a pair was the next day sent.

[7] These are the words of a noted biographer, concerning a no less noted subject,—his own wife!