E.B.R.
Marked--"First visit to F.F. with wife, June 9,1831."
Mr. RAMSAY to Miss STUART SHEPPARD, Fromefield.
Woburn, Friday night, 1st July [1831].
We are sure that our very dear friends at Fromefield will be interested in hearing of our progress and welfare, and as we have a few extra minutes this morning, we are determined to devote them to a party now living in the hearts of all the wanderers with whom they so lately and so grievously parted: the weather even sympathised on Tuesday evening, and all the comfort we had was in talking over individually the whole Fromefield concern. My brother, who is slow in making friends, and shy of strangers, softened into tender friendship under the influence of such kindness, and vows that if he had such friends he would travel annually from Edinburgh to see them. He has put one sprig of verbena from Stuart in one pocket, another sprig from Jane in another pocket, and a piece of painted glass from Elizabeth in another pocket. How lucky it is that his dress should be so abundantly supplied with the accommodation of so many receptacles for reminiscences! Our next grief after leaving you was the not seeing Cousin John! We were sadly disappointed. We did not get into Clifton till near ten; the rain would prevent his coming to meet us, and the next morning we very provokingly missed each other, though Mr. Ramsay consoled himself with writing a note. How much I hope and trust that we are all to meet next year! We were delighted with our drive from Chepstow to Ross--the Wye scenery is exquisitely beautiful; we exhausted ourselves and our epithets in exclamations, and the day seemed made for the magnificent view from the Wynd Cliff, and then we came to Tintern Abbey! How often we wished for our Chedder party--how often we talked over the pleasure we would have in admiring all this beauty with them, and how often, like spoiled children, we wondered why all this enjoyment should not have accompanied us to Monmouth! but good-night, my very dear friends--I shall leave the letter in better hands for finishing, I am so sleepy!!
[Mr. Ramsay]--We have seen many things of which the ingenious and very learned Dr. Woodward would say that they were "great ornaments to our ponds and ditches." But of this enough, and more than enough. Allow me to take this opportunity of expressing my satisfaction at finding how completely Mrs. E.B.R enters into the friendship which has so long existed between us, and at seeing how fully prepared she is to appreciate your kindness to myself and her; in short, to find that she loves you all now, as if she had known you as long as I have. May we never lose sight of these feelings! We saw Oxford to-day--a good thing, but in detail not equal to Cambridge--in general effect far superior. Gloster pleased me: the tower and cloisters surpassingly fine. People do not roar enough about the steeple of St. Mary's, Oxford--it is the finest in England, superior I think to that of Salisbury. Are you aware that there is a modern church at Oxford in the pure Norman style? My visit to Frome has given me (except in parting) unmixed satisfaction. I cannot say how much I have been gratified, and with what pleasure I look forward to a renewal. I must to bed, my eyes cannot discern the place to write in, and I am sleepy. Adieu, dearest friends, one and all at the Field of Frome, the Hill of Styles, the cottage of Keyford, etc. I rejoice to think that my good friend Kay is safe. Good-night! Woburn looks well--"a great ornament," etc.
Marked by Mrs. Clerk--"Written on their way from F.F.--first visit."
Mr. RAMSAY to Miss BYARD, Fromefield, Frome,
Somerset.
Edinburgh, Dec. 17, 1831,
My dearest Friend, They have told me that you are not well, and neither time nor distance can take away the feeling of regard and friendship with which I sympathise with all that occurs to you. I confess myself that I was some time since disposed to look on all things around me with an anxious aspect; but I am beginning to see in all events but a part of that dispensation which is so gloriously distinguished as the work of love, and I think that public calamity or private sorrow, sickness, pain, weariness and weakness, may all be translated into the same language, and may be arranged as synonyms of the same word. Yes! piety, goodness, the favour and approbation of God, are all marked out by sorrow and infirmity here. Why else did the blessed Jesus tabernacle here below--a man of sorrows? and why else was he acquainted with grief? It might make a Christian almost drink his cup of sickness and pain with greediness when he remembers that he is tasting the same cup as that of which his Lord drank, and he might hail with rapture the outstretched arm of death and suffering as about to place on his head the diadem of eternal glory. I am not to flatter you--you need it not, you ask it not; but, my friend, you must feel and know that you have been walking with God, walking humbly, doing good, neither trusting to false presumptions nor to your own merits. Christ has been your master, to Him you have looked, and, blessed be God! He will never, never forsake those who trust to Him,--those who are good to others for his sake,--those who seek redemption through Him. Where, O ye years that are past, have you gone? You have carried to the throne of grace many an act of contrition, many a devout prayer, many a good deed, many an offering of faith, from the friend to whom I now write. Bring back, ye moments that are to come and which shall be granted to her in this world, rich consolations, promises of pardon, assurances of favour, all spiritual blessings! Dear Miss Byard, may all these be yours in full abundance. May God the Father bless you, through the Eternal Spirit, for Christ's sake! This is the sincere and earnest prayer of your affectionate and faithful friend,
E.B.R.
In this I am joined by Isabella.
Marked--"It arrived just after her death."