Pulteney (see 24) has visited three times. Westminster on the up, but will never attain its former grandeur because of rival schools and Eton (see 3). Remarks on the potato blight and the new Houses of Parliament. The rising price of provisions - the Queen is making all this 'into ridicule' by limiting her household to one pound brown bread per day, but placing no limit on beef and venison; compare also the sums thrown away each week at the French and Italian Theatres.
Recent bad weather has caused many deaths, including his old friend the Duke of Argyll. Remarks on the crisis in Portugal, and civil unrest/disobedience in England.
Returns a letter from the Marquis of Anglesey to JB (see 7 and 8) - JB's son has apparently been posted to Spike Island (in Cork harbour). The new curate has used one of his grandfather's sermons (see 22) - HMC amazed that anyone should write new sermons, given the huge number of books of sermons sold 2nd hand every week. Discussion of London book auctions - a Mazarin (Gutenberg) Bible has been purchased for the American government for £500.
JB's new curate apparently has a sonorous voice - discussion of what goes towards a good sermon, and the views of the fictional Sir Roger de Coverley (in The Spectator). Old schoolfellow Thomas Feilde has died. People fleeing Ireland are bringing disease with them - London has responded by starting to clear slums - Pie Street (Old Pye Street?) has disappeared, and the government is contemplating throwing open Tothill Street to create a wide road form Buckingham Palace to Parliament. He would very much like to possess a very old map of London which used to be in the shop of the one-eyed baker Jackson on the corner of the Bowling Alley (now Tufton Street). Has JB heard anything of Pulteney (see 8, 20 and 21)?
On the rising price of potatoes in London, and the unjustness of the response to the Irish Famine. Public indifference to important questions - so, no disapprobation has been expressed at the House of Commons voting to remove some disabilities experienced by Catholics. HMC says that some (not all) Catholics can buy absolution at confession and then return to their criminality.
JB has found a curate - these are surprisingly rare, either because the exams have become harder or because new churches and chapels are springing up everywhere. The curate is the grandson of Bishop Robert Lowth - quotes part of the latter's epitaph on his deceased daughter. The curate's father was a little wild in his earlier years. Refers to Robert Lowth's verses (son of the bishop, father of the curate) on the Billesdon Copley Hunt. Again mentions the breakfast teapot (see 2).
Quote from the Vulgate (Book of Job, re the illnesses of old age). Alarmed by report that the school had been destroyed by fire, but in fact it was confined to Queen Anne's Bounty Office, between the boarding houses Clapham's and Geary's (NW corner of Dean's Yard). Has received 2 letters from Pulteney, who must have inherited immensely from Lady Bath (wife of Sir James Murray-Pultenay, OW). On the recent discovery by a Boston dentist of ether as an anaesthetic. How the pedantic and erudite use of the original meanings of words in book titles may put many people off buying them (A Catholic History of England, An Apology for the Bible).
Muses on Eheu fugaces (Hor.C.2.14), and thinks back to a birthday he held in Woodstock 66 or 67 years ago; when fuelled by champagne the young men rioted about the town. On the superficial reasons which led young men to join the army.
Returns a letter from Pulteney (see 8) to JB - asks for the former's address in Italy. Wonders whether late life illnesses are the Protestant equivalent of Purgatory - and then bemoans the influence of Cardinal Newman.
