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Lot 396

HUME (DAVID)

29 – 30 August 2012, 11:00 BST
Edinburgh

£1,000 - £1,500

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HUME (DAVID)

A section of glass removed from the Old Bush Inn, at Carlisle, where Hume etched a four line stanza in the window of his room of the delightful environs of Corby Castle:

"H. Evans, 2d Oct 1769
Here chicks in eggs for breakfast sprawl;
Here godless boys God's glories squall;
Here heads of Scotchmen guard the wall;
But Corbie walks allone for all." 25 x 18cm, [? eighteenth century], together with LONSDALE (HENRY) The Worthies of Cumberland, Routledge, 1872, and a newspaper cutting from the Carlisle Journal 10 July 1844.

Footnotes

Many...contributed their meed of praise in sonnets and poems of the loveliness of Corby. David Hume, the historian, journeying from Paris to his home in Edinburgh... found it convenient to rest a day in Carlisle: he took up his quarters in the "Old Bush Hotel"... After being offered breakfast and eggs that were half hatched, he attended the cathedral service, and afterwards inspected the city, its walls and the castle. None of these things at all pleased his senses... Seeking repose in the contemplations of nature, he repaired to Corby for the rest of the day. On his return to the "Old Bush," he inscribed on an pane of glass in the window of his room the following stanza, as a record of his personal experience.
Much of the second line is difficult to read, owing, it is said, to a jovial Parson who frequented the "Old Bush" and felt indignant at Hume's reference to the godless boys, tried to scratch it out.
(pp94-95, Lonsdale, The Worthies of Cumberland, Routledge, 1872)

My attention has been drawn...to the lost pane of glass out of the old Bush Hotel, Carlisle, prior to the re-building... I was on the most intimate terms with the late Mr John Bell, Solicitor, of Brampton, and he several times told me he intended to possess himself of it, as it might be lost, so employed a journeyman glazier to cut it out for him.

...The window pane...was at Corby Castle when I last saw it. The late Mr P.H. Howard, who showed it to me, told me it had been given to him, and I think he said it came from Brampton... it was in a frame and hung in the library.
(Carlisle Journal 10 July 1844)

Corby Castle, Cumbria, was the family seat of the Howard family since the 17th century, it was sold in 1994.

Additional information

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