The Hurd Library

Cheeking a bishop

Bishop Hurd was quite lively as a young man, judging by his early letters from Cambridge, but as he advanced in his career he grew more serious. In November 1765 Thomas Gray remarked to their mutual friend, William Mason, that he had “grown pure and plump, just of the proper breadth for a celebrated Town-Preacher”. If he had seen what Hurd had done the previous March he might have modified this opinion.

Hurd had now been Rector of Thurcaston in Leicestershire for nearly ten years and since 1760 had been chaplain to his friend and mentor William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. One day in March 1765 a large parcel arrived at the Rectory, containing this book:

Hurd had been expecting this; it was a gift from Warburton, who was coming to stay shortly. In February he had added a PS to a letter: “I shall deliver the Illustrious Heads to Miller; nay, I had delivered them to him by the binder to send you. But he, by mistake, sent them back to me in Grosvenor Square”. Andrew Miller (1707-1768) was a bookseller and publisher in the Strand. He had published Fielding’s novel Tom Jones in 1749 and became Warburton’s publisher in 1755.  The book, which was evidently not new, may have belonged to Ralph Allen, who was one of the subscribers:

Allen had died the previous year and Warburton, who had married his niece, was now the happy owner of Prior Park and a fine library, several of whose books he gave to Hurd, who purchased the remainder after Warburton’s death in 1779. Allen would have been particularly pleased to support the publication of this book, as one of the illustrious heads depicted was of his old friend Alexander Pope:

But Hurd’s reaction to this handsome gift was to write this verse on the flyleaf:

Warburton was  a very sociable chap and used to make Hurd invite all his neighbours to dinner when he came to stay. Hurd liked peace and quiet. One must hope Warburton did not examine his present too closely when he arrived.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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Alexander Pope and Marginalia

We don’t encourage students to write in books unless they are going to be famous - and of course you can’t always tell if fame will come eventually. But Alexander Pope must have been pretty certain, as he made numerous notes in the books of his we have in the Hurd Library. Here is one he made in his 1611 copy of Spenser’s poems.

The expression that has caught his eye is “The builder Oake”  on the last line but one. His note refers to the same expression in Chaucer’s “Assembly of Foules” (called the “Parliament of Fowls” now) and he gives the page number - 245. We have his 1598 copy of Chaucer’s works and here is the page he looked at:

“The bilder Oke” is on the last line but one.  If we look at Pope’s note more closely we can observe an interesting point:

 He has not written the page number as 245 but as 24.5. Let’s look at the page number in the Chaucer:

Pope was copying exactly what he saw, the inking after the 4 suggesting a point. Not even Maynard Mack, in his bibliography of Pope’s library, spotted that.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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The fruit of the vine

Wine is a perfect accompaniment to home-made bread (see our last blog), of which Bishop Hurd’s nephew, young Richard, was well aware. After his uncle’s death in 1808 he went to live in the Old Palace in Worcester, where he planted some grape vines in 1809.

Here is a letter from the supplier, Mr Wynne:

Richard has noted the varieties and recorded their planting:

He even kept the labels - I found them, wrapped in 200-year-old paper, in a drawer recently:

One of the vines was obviously brought from Hartlebury. The wine (if he made any) may have been a bit thin but the fruit must have gone down well with his bread and cheese. This wonderful antiquary seems to have thrown nothing away.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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The staff of life

Bread is a universally acknowledged staple diet. Bishop Hurd’s nephew, young Richard, spent a lot of time in his uncle’s library, making notes about (and sometimes in) the books. In early 1800 he turned his attention to the making of this vital food. (His interest in rice pudding came later - see our last blog but one).

In February he transcribed a recipe for bread made with bran water, sent to the Bishop of Durham by the Rector of Nuneham near Oxford.

It appeared that  bran water (which must have tasted pretty strong) made a heavier loaf than one with common water.  So they conducted a similar experiment at Hartlebury.

The local village baker, John Wiles, tried it first and found plain water the clear winner; then they had a go at the castle a few days later  -

with the same result. 

What puzzles me is there is no sign of any sugar to make the yeast rise. But Stephanie might be tempted to try the recipe in the castle cafe, though I suspect it will be nowhere near as good as her wondrous cakes and quiches. As for me, I shall stick to my panasonic.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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Another Lottery winner - Thomas Gray

Last week it was announced that the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has been so generous to Hartlebury Castle, is supporting the restoration of of Thomas Gray’s monument and family tomb in St Giles’s churchyard at Stoke Poges. It is the first step in the run-up to the 300th anniversary of Gray’s birth in 2016.  He was four years older than Richard Hurd but they were close friends from their days at Cambridge, together with William Mason, who was a poet too, but not an awfully good one - his real forte was gardening.

Although Hurd kept up a prolific correspondence with Gray he didn’t keep any of his letters - apart from one single, unsigned sheet:

This is a copy, in Gray’s hand, of an epitaph composed by Mason for his wife, who died prematurely, after only two years of marriage, in 1767. She is buried in Bristol Cathedral. Mason used to send his verses to Gray and usually got a healthy dollop of criticism in return. The final quatrain on this occasion must have been dire in the extreme, as Gray said “That will never do for an ending - I have altered them thus”. He sent the amended version to Hurd for his comments, as Hurd was pretty good at composing monumental inscriptions. “I have shew’d the Epitaph to no-one but Hurd, who entirely approves it” he wrote to Mason on 23 May 1767.”He made no objection but to one line (and that was mine)… so if you please to make another, you may: for my part I rather like it still” Hurd’s objection was to the penultimate line, but wisely Mason left well alone and the monument can be seen in the north choir aisle of Bristol Cathedral.

Gray’s input is not acknowledged, but no-one who struggles through the entire epitaph can fail to be moved by the sudden leap from the pedestrian to the sublime.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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Lovely rice pudding for dinner again!

Lovers of A.A.Milne will remember little Mary Jane, the fussy eater who threw a tantrum whenever rice pudding made its appearance for her supper. She might have been pleased to see it had she had the misfortune to live among the poor of Worcester in 1800. Some scraps kept by Bishop Hurd’s nephew, young Richard, show his uncle’s concern for those unable to afford bread. Rice, it was suggested, was just as nutritious and an acquaintance (T. James) sent him a broadsheet on its merits printed in Worcester on 4 August 1800.  It was intended to be pasted on to the back of a door in the house.

The recipes don’t sound at all bad to modern eyes. I think I may put a copy up in my kitchen. The broadsheet was accompanied by a letter from Mr James, dated 7 August. It clearly had the endorsement of his wife.

One must hope that the twopence ha’penny required for the ingredients was not beyond the reach of too many; but perhaps this explains why rice pudding used to have so bad a press.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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Our new graduate trainee

Today we welcomed Sarah Stretton’s successor to the Hurd Library. Alison Winston is one of the five new Skills for the Future trainees, who all began work last week on our new project, Nurturing Worcestershire’s Treasures. Alison will divide her time between the University of Worcester Research Collections and the Hurd Library. Her main tasks will be to continue putting records into the English Short Title Catalogue and to compile a provenance index. This will involve looking at every book and unlocking the details of former ownership, notes and marginalia which so many of them contain; we can expect lots of informative blogs. Here she is looking at a volume of Plutarch with parallel texts in Greek and Latin and observing the idiosyncracies of the early Greek font. (She read Classics at St Andrews.)

Bishop Hurd is looking over her shoulder as she examines the works of his old friend Thomas Gray.

It was a beautiful day today and the shock to my system of seeing that strange yellow thing in the sky and feeling too hot in my customary four layers resulted in my misreading the bus timetable and causing Alison to miss her bus home to Worcester. However this meant I could introduce her to Hartlebury Railway Station and, even more importantly, the pub on the platform, where we had tea.

She caught her train, but as the level crossing gates remained down too long after I had seen her off I had the pleasure of watching my train to Birmingham passing by on the  opposite side without me on it.  So I caught the next bus. Which will teach me to read timetables more carefully in future.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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The power of a village community

Followers of Twitter will know that the Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust (www.hartleburycastletrust.org)has been successful in its first round application to the Heritage Lottery Fund. It has been awarded £413,700 of development funds  in support of its efforts to secure the castle’s future as a heritage site, benefiting  the local community, the UK and beyond. But it all started rather quietly seven years ago, when a small group of local people in the village of Hartlebury got together to discuss the possible danger to the Hurd Library if the castle were to be sold privately. “Three or four families in a country village” wrote Jane Austen in 1814 “is the very thing to work  on”. In this case it was the families doing the work. Meeting in a conservatory they wrote letters, lobbied, recruited people with knowledge or influence, founded the Friends of Hartlebury Castle and the Hurd Library and, in 2009, the Trust, which has done us so proud. Here are some images of the idyllic village where Bishop Hurd spent the best years of his long life:

It won’t be all roses; there is hard work ahead as the Trust starts work on the second round application to secure the amount required to purchase the castle and grounds and prepare the building for a sustainable future. As Churchill said in 1942: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. And we are a step further to keeping the Hurd Library where it has belonged for just over 230 years.

Chris Penney, Hurd Librarian

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