1826-1827] Edward Irving 197 



tainly a very fine preacher. If he had but Mr Irving 's 1 

 beautiful voice he would be perfect. Mr Irving gave a 

 prayer of an hour's length, which is I think more than twice 

 too long. Moreover his praying is so theatrical as to be dis- 

 agreeable, a much worse fault in praying than in preach- 

 ing. There was an immense crowd, and quite a riot at one 

 time made by the people outside breaking in. 



I never knew such a bustle as I have been in. That and 

 the trouble of one's clothes are the disadvantages of London. 

 I feel as if I had time for nothing. Every minute that I 

 have is required for drawing that my lessons may not be 

 thrown away upon me. I have had two, and like Mr Copley 

 Fielding very much. 



Early in 1827 Harriet Surtees's long servitude ended with 

 the death of her husband. She had not any settled place of 

 abode during the first years of her widowhood, but stayed 

 much with the Sismondis. The folio whig letter from Harry 

 (now a barrister in London), was written to his mother just 

 after a visit to Mrs Surtees, and while she was with the John 

 Wedgwoods at Kingscote. 



Harry Wedgwood to Ms mother. 



5, ESSEX COURT, TEMPLE, 



Thursday [24 May, 1827]. 



MY DEAR MOTHER, 



I congratulate you on your change of quarters from 

 Cheltenham to Kingscote, though my own gout pay sag er is 

 not so strong as it used to be, or my taste for London is 



1 Edward Irving (1792 1834), divine and founder of the Irvingite 

 or Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. The movement is remembered 

 in connection with outbursts of articulate but totally unintelligible 

 expression, called " speaking with unknown tongues," which took 

 place about this time. The speakers regarded themselves as the 

 mere channel of some divine influence. Irving himself never spoke 

 the " unknown tongues," but was exceedingly indignant with " the 

 heedless sons of Belial " who maintained that it was mere gibberish, 

 and protested it only wanted the ear of him whose native tongue it 

 was to make it a very masterpiece of powerful speech. Mary Campbell, 

 who first had the gift, in a little farmhouse at the head of the Gair- 

 loch, conjectured for unknown reasons that it was the language of 

 the Pelew Islanders. Irving was a lover of Jane Welsh (Mrs Carlyle). 

 " If I had married Irving, we should have heard nothing of the 

 tongues," Mrs Carlyle wrote long afterwards. 



