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Old Westminsters English
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Bundle 3

Goodenough asks leave to nominate PE as steward of the 'Westminster meeting' for 1824, and for recommendations for a text book for the 6th Form.

Bundle 3

R Finch in Rome to PE in Florence. Apologises for not having accomplished PE's 2 commissions. Niebuhr has been ill, and he hopes to persuade Amati on the morrow to collate the 4 mss of Sophocles. Hopes Jenkyns will not succeed Parsons as Master of Balliol (he did). Has heard of a good ms of Suidas in the Roman College. Miller has fallen and hurt his shoulder. The Holy Roman Emperor (??? - tear in letter) has placed restrictions on ruin-hunters. Talk of the dating of some Roman antiquities. Ashbridge and Miller disagree on the merits of Vasi's Itinerary (of Naples).

Peter Elmsley to his sister-in-law [Mary Hallowell?]

Undated and unsigned, but apparently a first draft of the following letter (identical opening sentence, referring to the previous letter). More on the dishonest clerk. Carnival began on PE's birthday, Saturday, 8th February, and continued to Shrove Tuesday, 18th February - subtract 2 Sundays and 1 Saturday, this makes 8 days of carnival proper. Disguises (but not ecclesiastical, under penalty of whipping and excommunication) - devils, harlequins, cuckolds with long horns and most commonly white dresses like a domino. Walk on the Corso and pelt each other with confetti (formerly sugar-plums, but now limes); horse race (but no riders); masquerade at one of the theatres; all very innocent and stupid. Rome even safer to stay in than London. Detained 14 weeks in Rome by a Eur. ms in the Vatican Library. Foolish, having come so far, not to continue to Naples - only 150 miles on a good road, which would take 20 hours in England, but took PE 36 hours in Italy - brief description of route, passing from papal territory into the Kingdom of Naples.

Peter Elmsley to his sister-in-law [Mary Hallowell?]

Florence. Short opening times of the Laurentian library - about 14 hours a week - but able to work in his own room, so does not have to kill time. Italians a race of professed loungers. Loves Florence, but despises the Florentine gentry for their meanness. Depends on expatriate Englishmen for society - many half-pay officers (who would be dandies if they had the means of being so). The Hon. Brownlow-Charles Colyear a good example of the travelling youth of England (died in Rome because of wounds received from bandits whilst en route from Naples - but according to PE from a typhus fever). Dreadful weather over the winter - rain and fog - so cold that the cellars of confectioners contain blocks of ice thick even by English standards. Now lovely, though odd to see the surrounding hills white with snow. The weather changed with the arrival of the Emperor of Austria on 7th March, a person of mean presence. His fourth wife young enough to be PE's daughter - daughter married to Napoleon, and allowed to speak to no one. Florence very cheap - has only spent

Peter Elmsley to his sister-in-law [Mary Hallowell?]

Glasgow. Comfortable night at Dalnacardoch. Grounds of Taymouth Castle (but not inside, due to the imminent arrival of Lord Bradalbane and his bride). Killin and the burial ground of the Lairds of MacNab (the current Laird, while wooing a lady, promised her the grandest burial place in Scotland - she refused him). Night at Tyndrum - inns in Scotland inferior to the English, but far superior in terms of wine, rum and brandy (inns in Yorkshire an exception to this). Loveliness of the Vale of Glenorchy and of Loch Awe. Splendours of Inverary Castle...but the town a paltry deception. Description of journey from Inverary to Arrochar. Visited Inchtavannach. Night at Dumbarton (a dirty town, with one dirty inn), and castle before church the next day. Finally to a splendid inn in Glasgow (whose coffee room alone is larger than the assembly room in Ramsgate).

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