“Mrs. Botham is at Elford with Lady Andover, which I am glad of, for poor Lydia has a taste for conversation above the hum-drum mediocrity of her husband’s understanding. He has a very good pulpit drone, and gives the whole parish an excellent nap every Sunday with his sermonical lullaby.”
[196] Wife of Dr. Cotes, of Wimbledon, sister of Henry, Viscount Irvine, born 1691, died 1761.
“December 31, 1741.
“My dear Sister,
“This day did not begin with the auspicious appearance of a letter from you; I am glad it is not the first day of the New Year, for I might have been superstitious upon it. I hope you kept your letter back a day on purpose to welcome in the coming year. I wish it may be our lot ever to find the next bring us what the last wanted. But alas! time steals the most precious pleasures from us. Our life is like a show that has passed by, leaves but a track that makes remembrance and reflection rugged, a mark is worn for ever where the gay train of pleasures pass’d swiftly by, and observation is much longer displeased than ever it was delighted. I am loth to part with an old year as with an old acquaintance, not that I have to it the gratitude one has to a Benefactor, or the affection one bears to a friend. I am, I fear, neither better nor richer than it found me, but we lived easy together, and not knowing whether I shall have the acquaintance of many years, I could be willing to stop this. I have one obligation to it that I rate highly, that it has ensured you from the danger of smallpox. This year too has allowed us many happy months together. I hope all that are behind for me design the same, else they will come unwelcome, and depart unregretted.... This day sennight I shall be with you and the good family at Horton, telling a ‘Winter’s tale’ by the fireside! Oh that we were all to meet then, that once graced that fireside, even the goodly nine,[197] and thanking my Father and Mother for all the life they imparted to us, and have since supported! I hope the flock is safe and our meeting reserved for some of the golden days of fate.”
Thomas Robinson, the second brother, had this year brought out his celebrated legal book, entitled “Common Law of Kent, or the Customs of Gavel Kind, with an appendix concerning Borough English,” to this day a well-referred-to book. In 1822 a third edition was published, and another in 1858, revised by J. D. Norwood. Thomas was of Lincoln’s Inn, was admitted April 14, 1730. The “National Biography” states he was never called to the Bar, which must be a mistake, as there is frequent mention of his pleading cases at Canterbury and elsewhere in the manuscripts.
[197] The nine Robinsons, brothers and sisters.
1742
NEW YEAR’S DAY
This year opens with a letter to Mrs. Donnellan, a portion of which I copy—