From William Ginty   Sunday evening, 23rd Apl 1843.

110 Pitt Street | Liverpool | Sunday evening | 23rd Apl 1843.

Dear Tyndall

Rather curious is it not that I did not write to you ere this. How stands your Barometer of ‘sober seriousness’?¹ You would have one from me 3 days ago but for Larry Eivers, who has just arrived from the great metropolis. He is walking about here these last 2 or 3 days at his own request, (Jack² says he will write soon) – to improve his health previous to his removal for the examination of a Township on the Tithe scale³ about 10 or 12 miles from here. Larry’s soliloquys on London are rich – in fact I never knew him before – his passionate description of the churchyard rendered immortal by Gray’s Elegy⁴ is indeed highly amusing, the more so as this of all poetry and poems was Larry’s greatest favourite! He says it is a lovely spot for reflection and that there is a cenotaph erected on the spot where Gray was supposed to have composed the Happy piece! He went out to Windsor⁵ to Eton College;⁶ on the whole he seems to have been very merry while away and is well pleased with his trip. Tell George⁷ that Larry seen McDermott⁸ and says he is in very promising circumstances.

And now may I ask what fiend possessed you when you talked of sending pencils in a letter – only just imagine what a pretty enclosure!!!

Bladdering⁹ ahoy! my present position is an unenviable one – beside me sits a little black headed devil with a big arm and great ‘splaw’ feet,¹⁰ blowing the fire and asking me fifty questions about Ireland, ‘Oh dear how I should like to go there’ she cries as she rivets her vacant stare upon my sour looking phiz.,¹¹ and tries to look tender at me. ‘Indeed’, rejoins I ‘the passage is but a mere trifle’ – ‘ah’ she cries ‘what would strangers be doing there alone’ ‘Enjoying themselves of course’ says I – ‘The English generally go there to learn good breeding. I wish some more of them would go’ and may I be canonized, if she has not taken the hint and buried her snub nose in the mazes of a white handkerchief which might be very safely used for a table cloth – so now I am free, she has just left the room and ‘I am all alone’ By the way you can just book in your remembrances that Sunday evening the 23rd of April 1843 is a 2nd edition of the Deluge at Liverpool.¹²

Pangs pierce my heart your rigmarole

Electrified my very soul

Could not your fancy find a song

That claimed more ardour from your tongue

Than this of Ellen¹³ – is that name

For ever doomed to be your theme

Could not your muse inspire a lay

More genial to your heart’s decay

Than that which to your soul must bring

Affection’s keen and poignant sting

The pang of hopes so quickly crushed

The woe of lays for ever hushed

The dirge of extacies which rung

Their brightest octaves from your tongue

The ‘Passing-bell’ of loves young dream

To rack your bosom as a flame

The requiem of a bliss once cherished

Which now is gone – for ever perished

Called you her ‘ours’ – this cannot be

In adoration we agree

But no – not further – well you know

She never loved nor looked on you

As one with whom she would entrust

The purest heart that ere from dust

Was generated to control

The feelings of immortal soul

Call her no more then ‘ours’ for I

Alone found favour in that eye (!!!)

Methinks I see it even now

Flash forth its loveliness – her brow

Meantime in frowning beauty lowers

A contradiction to that ‘ours’

Alas sad thought – twelve moons at least

Their aerial path have slowly traced

Since last I gazed upon that face

Yet here its portrait finds a place

Aye in my heart – a deep regret

Shall teach me never to forget

Flow sorrow flow! dark dreamer I

Must ever hail that form as nigh

Flow sorrow flow – a life of sighs

Must oft pourtray those loving eyes

So soft their glances – bright their hue

Outrivalling heaven’s cerulean¹⁴ blue

Yes ‘clouds of care’ may darkly roll

Their dismal phantoms round my soul

And waves of sorrow dash their yeast

Of rippling horrors o’er my breast

My buoy of life – of hope – must be

My lovely Ellen – thoughts of thee!

My journal after six weeks ‘leave of absence’ has safely returned¹⁵ with the consolatory moiety of 2 pence sterling to commence from the 1st of May A.D. 1843.¹⁶ Curses light upon their miserable souls. Is it not fit to try the philosophy of a Bolingbroke!¹⁷

There are some of this office party¹⁸ going to Hull shortly. Exclusively plotters.¹⁹ Turner is going and I think Bill Latimer will go too – he seems not to dislike the chance of the change!

I intend having another trial at getting to Preston, others have got like applications granted and I don’t see why I shouldn’t – I will however try, when these London and other arrangements are made, for in the sober seriousness of good truth I am most heartily sick of Liverpool or rather the Survey office at Liverpool. I can find no congenial spirit among them – ‘No heart that beats reply to mine’.²⁰ With very few exceptions they are a set of drones – boors and nincompoops. ‘We’ll talk of this anon’²¹

RI MS JT 1/11/3601

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