The Henson Journals

[84]

Wednesday, January 10th, 1917.

891st day

"A foreign ambassador, some 200 years since, coming to Durham, addressed himself first to the high & sumptuous shrine of St Cuthbert, 'If thou beest a Saint, pray for me': then coming to the plain, low, and little Tomb of Bede, 'Because', said he, 'thou art a Saint, good Bede, pray for me'."

(Fuller, in 1655.)

Heylyn in his 'Microcosmus' (1625) has a violent denunciation of Tobacco.

"This unsavoury drug was first brought hither by the mariners of Sir Francis Drake Anno. 1585. It may be as an antidote for the immoderate use of drinking, which our Belgian soldiers brought with them 3 years before, from the Low Countries, before which time, of all Northern people, the English were deemed most free from that swinish vice; wherein, it is to be feared, they have now out–gone their teachers, the Dutch." [p. 799]

I attended Mattins, & worked at the Lecture. George came in, & arranged my new supply of note–paper &c. The Bp. of Jarrow, Mrs Quirk, Rowlandson, Bayley, and Mrs Luxmoore came to lunch. Then the Mayor & Mr Waite called to see whether we wd grant land for allotments. We were complaisant, & conceded all we were asked. Then we had the first meeting of the Patronage Committee. Watkins, Knowling, & Quirk were there beside myself. We chose three names for submission to the Chapter as suitable for South Shields: and subsequently I wrote privately to the gentlemen inviting them to be candidates. The snow which lay thickly on the ground this morning maintained itself throughout the day. After dinner we sate in my study, talking & reading aloud until bed–time. This tiresome lecture for the Royal Institution 'holds up' everything else, and is itself the most absolute waste of good time!

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