Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 21 November 1791
I do not believe that in all my life I have ever written so much about myself as I have lately done to you, except perhaps to my mother & sister. However, pray do not be afraid lest I shd always continue in the same strain. Hereafter I will take up a more interesting subject but as you have already had so much of my journal, I will even send you the conclusion, were it but for the sake of filling up the measure of the depredations I have committed upon your time. Except the volatile Sheldon whose good nature kindles at your approach & dies away at your departure, I did not meet with a single person who cared for me after parting from you <till I arrived in Warwickshire>. There are multitudes of old unemployed batchelors & autumnal maidens in this & the reciprocal, which is a good deal the worse, condition; how comes it that when they find their whole life to be made up of such comfortless portions, they shd take the trouble of eating & drinking to prolong it? At Birmingham I met with several people whose countenances cheered up at my entrance. Being abundantly satisfied with travelling in stage coaches, I determined to walk home. I had formed, on the road, a design of passing a day with Keir; I had indeed long wished to be better acquainted with him: his house lies by the way 7 miles from Birmhm. Fortunately he was at home. As our opinions in chemistry were different & in politics the same, only that I have scoured more of the rust of prejudice off my mind, & as he is the intimate friend of Darwin & Day, we shd have been unlucky indeed if we had wanted conversation during the two days I passed with him & passed very pleasantly: & considering the consequences which followed, the chairman of the Birmm revolution dinner was a man whom one might be curious to see. I was sorry when he told me that Mrs Day had quitted his house not long before. I know not the origin of the association but from my earliest remembrance the sound of her husband’s name was always accompanied in me with an agreeable emotion. And upon the maturest reflection, I cannot but regret his premature death as an event that deprived his country of its most distinguished ornament. It was hard that he did not live to see the fruit of his own efforts at home; it was still harder to be cut off before the National Assembly had eventually atchieved the temporal salvation of mankind. Had he been a member of that assembly he wd have been next to Mirabeau in talents & the eminent superiority of his character wd perhaps have given him the precedence upon the whole. Nor do I believe that the eloquence of the French statesman was more calculated either in his writings or speeches to gratify the ear & to convince the reason. His large fortune did not make a coward of him, as is so commonly the effect of wealth, nor did it impair his equity towards others. His refusal to represent a county, when solicited; his long demur whether he shd marry a lady whom he perfectly approved, merely because she had a large fortune; & a few other of his actions give him a romantic cast; & he may be regarded as a Lord Herbert of Cherbury perfectly humanized & instructed In having once hoped for some improvements from Pitt & afterwards in execrating the miserable system of selfish craft by which he has disappointed these hopes, you, I imagine, will perfectly sympathize with him. When your sister procures a book I recommended to her she will see under another but not a less advantageous point of view. Mrs Keir told me that when he was last at her house, there came continual troops of children to look at the author of Sandford & Merton. She spoke of Mrs Day in very high terms & promised that when she returns which will probably be soon, she will let me know. I am curious to see her both on her husbands account & her own, & rather more so, as she is young & handsome though she has suffered much from the loss of her husband: & the aggravating circumstances, that accompanied it. – You have heard a great deal about Keir’s manufactory; as I knew it to be established upon secrets of which he alone was in possession, delicacy forbade my mentioning the subject. The 2d day he proposed a walk to it. On the way I took notice of the difficulty of my situation. I shd be glad to know all he chose to tell but I might very possibly ask questions that tended further. However as he had undoubtedly framed his system of conduct with respect to visitors long since, he wd not find himself embarrassed by any such questions. The whole secret consists in the knowledge of the decomposition of mineral salts, vitriolated tartar certainly, but I do not know if common salt, so much more important, be among their number. He makes prodigious quantities of soap, merely because he was otherwise at a loss how otherwise to dispose of the alkali. Having been accustomed to find miracles disappear on being approached & sometimes to see others in their place that had never flown abroad on the wings of report, I was not surprized that his words had little of the air of an enchanted castle: they are not guarded by inaccessible ramparts nor three headed monsters. Seeing large quantities of lime, I asked if he converted it into alkali. He laughed at the idea as absurd & impracticable. There he was in the wrong, I believe you will say. I had many times heard it asserted that his profits were immense. I cd not ask a precise question upon this head, though many people, feeling the importance of <reputed> riches, are fond of displaying & magnifying their gains. My companion however was above this species of vanity. Upon my saying ‘these works are the most powerful incentive to the study of chemistry that any country has to shew; for all the world says Mr Keir gains £30,000 a year,’ he told me he shd be very glad to follow Chesterfields maxim & believe half of what the world says, & even to halve this several times over. He had spent a great deal of money in his projects which were only now beginning to repay him. He shewed me some exps of a totally new cast from any which have been described, & which seem to depend on the united influence of a sort of magnetism & chemical attraction. It wd be tedious & take too much room to describe them. When I was near taking my leave, he urged me as far as civility wd permit to assist him in his great chemical works, offering me any articles I might choose. I cd not but be sensible of the compliment nor cd I doubt its sincerity. I observed to him that at first sight I wd much sooner be underrated than overrated, & so little liable was I to the last misfortune that perhaps it had now happened to me for the first time: I had not that extensive reading as qualified me to bear much share in so comprehensive a work, nor did I greatly relish the idea of searching a vast number of books for the necessary facts. There were however a few articles as Iron & some others belonging to <metallurgy or> chemical mineralogy, <in which I wd assist him> but I wd by no means engage to write an equal share of 4 or 5 vols in 4to. Besides, he was the most able & conspicuous defender of the old system; to me truth seemed to be on the opposite side. The different articles wd therefore be at variance with one another. And though he probably had raised his mind by reflection above such a weakness, few men cd bear to be contradicted & fewer to be confuted by those who were much younger than themselves. He still continued his solicitations & requested at least that I wd consider his proposal seriously before we shd meet next. – The ferment whose effervescence produced the shameful scenes of Birmm, has by no means subsided; I am afraid it has spread. I am told our country newspapers are full of abuse in which to the dissenters are united [xxxx] the well-wishers to the French revn. Priestly’s friends believe that he wd certainly be destroyed were he to appear at Birmm, so little is the thirst of the dogs of unfeeling ignorance & frantic fanaticism for human blood as yet assuaged. At the time of the riots Keir certainly saved his house by taking measures for a vigorous defence. He continually receives anonymous letters. Here is the conclusion of a printed one which arrived just before me. ‘Let the Dissenters beware. The arm of loyalty has been raised against them. Their present deportment is in proof that it was needful. The bolt, though shot is not entirely spent. And the people at large have too much affection for the king & too much reverence for the present government to suffer either of them to be attacked with impunity by the arts of the seditious.
The Lion is too magnanimous to trample upon the fallen. –
Presume not then – his noble nature, ye Dissenters! – for if ye again arouse him ––
Mr Keir, your commentator, may explain the consequences – –
Dated Constitution Tavern–
Keir is no dissenter, at least he ranks in no particular communion of dissenters
The morning I came away, I played an hour & half at battledore & shuttle-cock with Miss Keir. And she promised the next time I came to go with me to Dudley hill & shew me some fossil curiosities which her father & I had failed to find. We had seen some curious dispositions of strata from lifting & upon comparing the globules from Chinoweth (how do you spell the word?) with the Rowley Rag stone, we cd not perceive any difference – Miss Keir is a botanist & somewhat of a chemist. Her father strongly objected to music & went so far as to say that girls who were good players, were good for nothing <else> You may be sure I was faithful enough to the truth to protest against the narrowness of this opinion. I told him if he cd bring me as decisive exps as I cd bring him instances of ladies who excelled in music without being deficient in any thing he might require in the sex, I wd relinquish oxygene & return to phlogiston. –
I may be thankful to my residence in Cornwall for being able to walk home (20 miles) witht stopping in the way and witht inconvenience; yet I was loaded with two 8vo & one 4to book & a few articles besides. On my arrival I found my sister & Sadler drinking tea together. He is sanguine still, but says he has considerably improved his engine My sister tells me that she understands that his pump has been tried & found to answer. He is certainly going to take a house here with Reynolds’s sanction. All that family is from home. When Reynolds returns, I must have a serious conversation with him on the subject of Sadler. Having formed the connection I ought to be anxious to know his sentiments respecting it. They are about to establish a manufacture of gunpowder, which I am glad to hear. If Reynolds shd find Sadler’s services such as to deserve a comfortable maintenance for himself & his family, I shall consider myself as fortunate for several reasons & especially for having rescued a woman, so respectable in her sphere as Mrs Sadler, from a situation probably not much more eligible than the ergastula of the Roman slaves. I shd be equally concerned if it shd turn out that I have been instrumental in wasting the liberality of such a man as the proprietor of the Ketley Ironworks. I hope he is satisfied with Sadler, who tells of his forcing £100 drts upon him whenever he has been going to London whence he has several times been – When Mrs Reynolds returns, I shall not fail to execute my commission to her. –
I find my father & mother who, a few days after we left Shifnal, set out to visit an old batchelor of an uncle of mine in the confines of Wales, still absent. I have been examining my sister about the expences of house-keeping during her solitude. As they have been extremely moderate, I have desired her to take measures for a dance, which you know will not only serve to amuse her but also to display the elegant accomplishment I have lately acquired.
I told the story of the national cockade at Keirs. Next morning he came to me laughing with an old newspaper in his hands & told me he wd shew me the production of a rival. I begged the paper & enclose the lines. I hope you will have an opportunity of shewing to Maria the poetical scourge which some guardian of her loyalty has applied to the shoulders of her corruptor; & you may congratulate yourself on being 6 feet high, otherwise yours wd not have escaped.
Without laying a bait for a compliment I am alarmed at the weary length of my letters. I will curtail them in [future] Can you read this galloping hand? I hope you will be able; for it is a great convenience to me to write thus without attention to the words I use or the way I write them.
Though I have not mentioned your family in either of my two former letters, (one from Exeter & one from Bath) I hope they will not think me so insensible as to have forgotten them. I trust you will answer for me that I have not. Pray let me know what becomes of Jenny’s brother & Jabet’s aches. I can hardly hope for any permanent amendment in the former – Frost. Hay £5 a ton & advancing – Dissertation on potatoes in my next – Farewell
T. B.
Endorsement: Novr 21 – 1791 DG
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/48
Published [in part]: Stock, pp. 36–40