resin dust produced by their lathes.” Also of “secret springers and piercers,” who suggest murder and sudden death to the imperfectly informed.
The following incident (ii., p. 883) is interesting from the point of view of history:—A negro, Jonathan Strong, had been brutally beaten by his master, and was admitted to the hospital in 1765. On leaving he got work at a chemist’s in the city; all seemed well, when he was recognised by an agent of his former master, and seized as “the property of Mr Kerr.” Granville Sharp, who happened to be present, at once charged the agent with committing an assault. An action brought against Sharp lingered on for some time and was finally dropped. Strong remained free, but the general question of slavery in England was not settled till 1772. It is pleasant to know that in 1877 Dr Moore told the story of Jonathan Strong to William Lloyd Garrison.
SIR GEORGE AIRY [161]
In attempting to estimate this book, it is necessary to avoid first impressions, for what strikes one on opening its pages is its dullness. It is edited by his son, who, in a Personal Sketch, gives certain facts about his father without succeeding in being graphic or interesting in any way. There is too much detail of an unexciting quality, e.g., p. 272 (1867): “There was the usual visit to Playford in January. In April there was a short run to Alnwick and the neighbourhood in company with Mr and Mrs Routh. From 27th June to 4th July he was in Wales with his two eldest (sic) sons, visiting Uriconium, etc., on his return. From 8th August to 7th September he spent a holiday in Scotland and the Lake District of Cumberland with his daughter Christabel, visiting the Langtons at Barrow House, near Keswick, and Isaac Fletcher at Tarn Bank.” When this kind of thing occurs often it is intolerably wearisome.
The same criticism applies to the extracts from Sir George Airy’s diary, which his son publishes.
For instance, p. 172 (1845): “On 29th January I went with my wife on a visit to my uncle, George Biddell, at Bradfield St George, near Bury. On 9th June I went into the mining district of Cornwall with George Arthur Biddell. From 25th August to 26th September I was travelling in France with my sister and my wife’s sister, Georgiana Smith. I was well introduced and the journey was interesting. On 29th October my son Osmond was born. Mr F. Baily bequeathed to me £500, which realised £450.”
This is a class of facts which a man may like to record, but their publication when so often repeated is surely unnecessary. There is, however, this to be said—that minute accuracy was a marked feature in Airy’s character, and must therefore be made prominent; and it may be argued that the right degree of prominence can only be given by avoiding all suppression. I cannot think that this is so in the case of an editor. Nor can I believe that Airy would have approved of one detail in his son’s method of printing the book, namely, that the diary is enclosed in inverted commas throughout, while the editor’s occasional remarks are without them. It would surely have been simpler to say once for all that what is printed is an accurate copy of the diary, and to have given the editor’s remarks within square brackets.
George Biddell Airy was born at Alnwick on 27th July 1801. He seems to have belonged to a Westmoreland family, but his forbears for several generations were small farmers in Lincolnshire.
His father, William Airy, was clearly a person of energy and forethought, who laid by his summer’s earnings “in order to educate himself in winter.” He gave up farming as a young man and found employment in the excise, a profession not without danger in those early days when contraband trade was common. He is said to have had many fights with smugglers, but did not suffer the fate of the gauger in Guy Mannering, for Dirck Hatteraicks were not so common as youthful readers might desire.
In 1810 William Airy was transferred to Colchester, where, if there were fewer smugglers, there was more opportunity for education; and George was sent to a school in a street bearing the attractive name of Sir Isaac’s Walk. Four years later Airy went to the Colchester Grammar School, where he remained until 1819, when he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. The only point of interest connected with his school life is the record (in his own words) of Airy’s remarkable verbal memory. “It was the custom for each boy once a week to repeat a number of lines of Latin or Greek poetry, the number depending very much on his own choice. I determined on repeating 100 every week. . . . It was no distress to me, and great enjoyment. At Michaelmas 1816 I repeated 2394 lines, probably without missing a word.”