Family Memorials
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FAMILY MEMORIALS COMPILED BY ANNA W MERIVALE. Printed for Private Circulation. EXETER: THOMAS UPWARD, PRINTER, HIGH STREET 1884. PREFACE. - The memorials of our family which are printed in the following pages have been compiled from various sources. The first of these is the collec'tion of our Great-grandfather Samuel Merivale's correspondence, which was put together by my father in a comprehensive biographical memoir, which he was preparing in the latter years of his life not without a view to publication. In a letter addressed to the Rev. Francis Hodgson, (afterwards Provost of Eton) dated 18301 my father had thus expressed himself: "But now I am on the subjecl: of letters I must p,;-oceed to tell you how I have been employed during a great part of the past year, the impulse having been first given me shortly after my dear mother's death, which gave occasion to my hunt ing through the large masses of family papers which have accumulated for a full century by the pious care of my letter-saving ancestors. Among these are volumes of lV. PREFACE. Letters, Sermons (1500 in number), Theological and Philosophical Commonplaces, Tracts and Essays, of my Gr~n?father Merivale, a Dissenting Minister of the last century and of the school of Dr. Doddridge, who (i.e. · my Grandfathe~) was one of the most amiable and benevolent as well as liberal of divines, and though not sufficiently orthodox for your, or even for my own present standard, yet at least as far from the Priestley and Belsham school as we may be from him ; indeed much further than I can honestly profess myself to be. He had only one failing that I know of, that of writing all he did write in shorthand ; the consequence of which is that his unworthy descendants have hitherto suffered all his labours to lie mouldering on shelves for want of patience to decipher them. The art of doing ;o I have been recently acquiring, and find a gi-eat deal not only to reward my pains, but upon which I serious ly think of raising hereafter that monument which has· so ~onstantly been the favourite dream of my ambition. With materials the most ample for a 'Memoir of the Life and Opinions of My Grandfather '-i.e. the history of his mind, J-0r other history his quiet, retired, unostentatious life had none of, -why not so interweave the history of one's own . thoughts and prospects, on a variety of the most interesting subjects, as to form the prettiest specimen of Authetero biography extant? Now tell me what you think of this new project. My idea is that the 'Life and Opinions of PREFACE. Y. Tristram Shandy' will be beat out and out by it. Grand father, Father, Self and Sons-what a. rich treat for posterity !-besides a variety of offsets-your Sunday's ride with my poor Father, and his dropping the Prayer book when the Athanasian Creed was read-this for a specimen of the lighter sort of anecdote with which it will rbound. I propose to print in about 20 08:avo volumes; le.ss will certainly not do-and it is much more likely to extend to 40."-And so with a little banter onwards. ' The memoirs which my father eventually compiled from this beginning extended to three thick and closely written volumes, the writing remarkably small, neat and correa, and the ink not as yet much faded. They would fill cer tainly not less than three bulky o&avos in' print. The correspondence they embrace is preserved to ·a great ex tent in the original autographs, but some portions of it are reproduced by my father, who copied them from the writer's shorthand. Some of Samuel Merivale's letters take the form of essays or tra8:s, composed with great care and very considerable ability, though apparently with no view to publication, and the whole is comb1~ed with . ., . frag~en-ts of his diaries, and such notices of his habits and acquaintance, and the incidents of his career in life as my father was able to collect from other sources. My father had hoped that the correspondence might serve to illustrate the social life of the middle of the last century, vi. PREFACE. and engage .the ,intefest Qf a .certain number of rea-ders; I?ut it was .carried on with provincial acquaintance among the Dissenters, :c,bscµre m~ in an ·obsc\lre,cor~er of the country,· though i~ many ases ·well educated ·· and :in• telligent,-and the projea, when nJentioned to eminent publi.sher~J met with little favou~. · X ~t my father"CQUtinued to hanker:aftedtto t~ ~d, and ,if ,he had Jived -would, I af)prehen~i.. have made the_:VeJ!tµre o.f publication Qn his owp_ ~cc~µnt_. ~ -:T4<)Ugh he.- ~ever lH!ggeste,;l it Jo :myself, I cannot _};mt think \hat l!e Jf!ft it as a:pioU;s charge. with me to -do what c,Dlight be ~ost feasible with _tegard. -to it, ai:i,d it hcls i:i,l_~ays been a: ~tter of some apxiety:and com• puncHon _that l haye ~ot be~m ~o_le to. pet'l>uade myse~f: to accompli~ aJl Ile ~y hav~ wished about :it,· ~I :trust, qo~ev~rJ .that. 'Ye are. now ~i~g Jh_e best _that can be done by the µse_-~e:~e:0Lil in:the ~$!Kial$ here presented tp ~ ,~ist~ag~embeJs_Qf f!.ie-Family. ::;,Q!¥' 4"th~!s .!JlO~h~r: !ef.t -~I~~ !'hort_ •~unt of what she :l,la~J~,n~~ni~d_Qe3f<LoL:Jter ow_n family~ t.he Katen camps, ~hicll, is~ ~ere ,insert~d _~itji: li.ttle ·.iabiidgeroent. Her ~nuscript,Jrom -w.hi~h ,it ~s pdntedi :is n~arka:bly .. - .. \. precise.,.a:nd. nfc!,t, ,.and _b~rs. witn~!'I,. no. ,Jess :than ::the fluent ·a~d ~imple_•EitYl~-of tp~ ~mposi~iou; to h'er.1!t-edfast and _well ordered character, to. which -those among us who still remember her look back with deep regard and re- verence. PREFACE. vn. Our grandfather, John Merivale,-has left us no literary remains. He was himself a man :of 'private -and limited education, and it seems rather surprising that his fa:ther, with such extensive reading and literary instinas .liimself, should not have taken more pains to imbue hitn with in.:. telleetual tastes and accomplishments. The means which he inherited made it unnecessary for him to push his way in any business or profession, and he allowed -himself lo dream away too much of his time in the fodolence wliic:h seems to have.be~n constitutional with him. --· Conscious as he was of his humble ·descent, there was--occasiona.lly something humorous in the way he shewed his :humility, Too proud to be sensitive, he seemed ~to :turn..:pefversely: from the social advantages to which he was fairly entitled, H.e gave his son, whose talents soon became--evident; =a private-school· education, and :wbuld--ha:ve:,put-:.Jiim; to business, as I have heard, with tbe :bc;olcseTiers,:haa 1\-M: a more discerning friend prevailed -8!1 him ro "let -him =have the ~advantage of a 'career at -the University, antl~from thence inake venture-at the Bar. But the-de-voutness-ana simplicity .of his -character teft a very pfeasing impressio~' upon the few who knew him, though the later years-o1-his life":ivere clouded by sickness, not without deep :and -per manent ciepressiori of spirits. 0 - We have however .the good fortune to possess several MS. volumes of our father's personal journals, in which "fie viii. PREFACE. gives a very detailed account of himself from day to day for many years, together with notice of all domestic and many public events, interspersed with his own <:ornments upon piero. The extracts we have made from this in teresting store furnish the bulk. of these Memorials. We trust that the original MSS., written as they are in a Temarkably clear a11d graceful hand, will be carefully pre served for reference hereafter; but we judge them to be too lengthy,· and in some respects too minute and of a character too personally introspective, for complete re production in print. With the extracts from these Diai:ies will also be found some family. letters referring to events . interesting at the time and perhaps still interesting to our private circle, and helping to complete the portraiture of those from whom we are descended. We are fully conscious of our father's wish to be "remembered in his line," and of the hope he indulged that by means of such documents ·as these his character might be long kept, at least by ourselves, in affectionate regard. The volume here presented to his living descendants will not fail to do him honour with them, and may perhaps animate some among them to follow so touching an example of industry and goodness. The history of the family was taken up by my eldest sister, Louisa Anne, at the point where our grandmother left it, and continued by her to the period of our father's PREFACE. ix. death. The greater part of the memoir thus written by her is here printed. These Memorials have been compiled by Anna Wilhel mina, my father's youngest daughter, with some assistance from myself, and the addition of a few· incidental ·notices. It is at my sister's desire that I write this prefatory ex planation, as the eldest survivor of the race, now fifty, I believe, in number.