From William Ginty   Tuesday evening, (December 1842)

Kirkby Lonsdale | Westmoreland | Tuesday evening.

My dear Tyndall,

A few moments before I started to Sedbergh¹ on last Saturday I received yours.² I’m glad you liked the ‘Album’s pages’³ so much – as nearly all the poems in the album were original (are truly original) I felt myself in duty bound to be an original too – but in good truth I have no ambition to shine amongst the ‘Poetical Luminaries’ of Westmoreland.⁴ I am sure the same album would amuse you more than any you ever seen – for at least one ½ hour. You’d ‘start, for Soul is wanting there’!⁵

I spent a most miserable Xmas⁶ in Sedbergh. I never want to visit that city of the wilds again. I was ready to curse myself on Sunday evening for not accepting ‘HOWA JOE’S’⁷ invitation to dinner. What do you think they gave me for dinner at Tidmarsh’s and Latimer’s – A piece of salmon a pretty dish for a winter’s day and a Xmas day (it was a ‘spent fish’⁸ of 15lbs weight that they got for 3d per lb.)⁹ But ‘oh, be de holy, be de holy!’ the lodgings exceeded my most sanguine expectations of rustic simplicity and unsophisticated hospitality. I got the one third- of a bed of chopped straws of about 1 inch long which ever and anon dealt most unmerciful wounds on my outward man thro’ the thread-bare sackcloth which formed a most suitable reconnoitring ground for a few millions of the bloody ‘black horse’.¹⁰ After spending an hour or so in this position, I very deliberately got up and made my clothes supply the place of a suit of armour. I smoked, read and strode about the room until the farthing rush-light shed its last halo within the precints of the old saucepan (which in the true spirit of invention was made to supply the place of a candlestick) and then with a heavy heart I betook myself once more into the scene of strife and bloodshed. But sleep was out of the question – the rain dashed furiously against the shattered window casement, the wind moaned horribly thro’ the antique chimney funnel, add to this the piteous lamentations of Tid¹¹ and Bill¹² as they held their post mortem examinations over a few of the discomfited enemy, and you will allow that I was in no enviable situation. Monday morning saw me tramping the road to Kirkby thro’ rain and storm – alas too fully persuaded that I had been ‘too far north’

To lie on straws — to gaze around one’s cell

To slowly trace the ragged bed-clothes scene

Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell

And mortal leg hath ne’er escaped their spleen

To feel them climb upon thy ribs unseen

A wild wild flock that never needs a fold

Alone with these to yell the piteous ‘keen’¹³

This is not solitude; tis but to hold

Converse with Sedbergh’s charms and feel its stores unrolled.

As Jim¹⁴ is ‘pouring aloft a flood of melody’ o’er the beauties of Child Harold¹⁵ you had better recommend this new edition to his soaring attention such a critique as him will admit that adversity hath its charms as well as solitude.

So Mr Taylor is enjoying all the sweets of Christian ennui in L.Pool.¹⁶ And you wanted me to insult the benign young proteus¹⁷ in theology by writing to him. Well! well! If I required evidence to prove that you were in Co.¹⁸ Carlow when I embarked at Cork¹⁹ this would be most irrevocable decisive, but He was there, and well I recollect how I then admired his ‘meekness of spirit’²⁰ and ‘Christian humility’ as he paced the quarter deck and poop of the ‘Ocean’²¹ during our passage to Passage²² ‘The scene and hour &c.’ Enough! ‘Well I will dream that we may meet again’.²³

I wouldn’t doubt Messrs Hunter and Latimer for an exposé of my affairs in Kirkby²⁴ – but I ‘reckon nowt²⁵ on it’

‘The rose will cease to blow

‘The Eagle turn a dove

‘The streams will cease to flow

‘Ere I will cease to love’.²⁶

My soul’s bright satellite sheds her luster at present in Kendal²⁷ I feel indebted to you for your kind offer with respect to your Kinsale correspondence. Remember me to Chadwick that’s all! Tell the little beggar that I said that he should read ‘Young’s night thoughts’²⁸ set to the music of his nasal organ. – Heavens! What a beautifully sublime and harmonious contrast! – Snores verses Sublimity.

I had a letter from Payne a few days ago in which he says that you sent him a very fine description of your mess in poetry, ‘but’ says he ‘George Latimer’s nose was the most prominent feature in it’

I wish this Houri²⁹ of mine would come home. I feel most uncomfortably lonesome. Kirkby is no longer a lovely spot at least until she returns.

I love the brilliant courtly scene

I love the groves delightful green

The fountain and the bright cascade

The rose-wreathed bower and gentle shade

But palace fountain grove or grot

Can never charm where she is not.

Jack³⁰ is not in Hornby!³¹ He wrote to you on Sunday last³² and of course gave you all the particulars of his situation. They can buy very excellent cheese for 2½ and 3d per lb.!!! Do you ever write to ‘Xina’³³ You and her would do well together now that you are so deep read in the French, let me see Mr and Mrs T.³⁴ begs to announce to the nobility and gentry &c. Oh it would do remarkably well!!! Ahem! Mr Pedagogue ye would surely eclipse the luminarys of modern times in the Belle Lettres³⁵ and the fine arts. Faith Tyndall I’m serious!!!

While I was in Sedburgh the lads there received a communication apprizing them of their removal to L.Pool in a few days. Its curious I have not yet got such, it looks as if they intended to leave me out (but that I dont care for) and yet it is very improbable, as they are surveying and I measuring they of course require earlier notice – that may account for it, but if it is really a fact that I am to be left out – so let it be with all my heart

‘Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air

And life that bloated ease can never hope to share’³⁶

I am beginning to grow a little sleepy and the post is nigh closing and so I will bid you good night. Remember me to the mess

Ever yours | Ginty.

RI MS JT 1/11/3587

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