By the Rev. Canon J E. Jackson, F.S.A. 193 



part of his property in Calne to the Earl of Shelhurne. For an 

 extract from the Duckett pedigree see Appendix, No. IX. 3 



I have not been able to find that Calne was the birthplace of any 

 person whose name has become a " household word," but there have 

 been some 



Eminent Residents. 



Some years ago a well-known writer, both in poetry and prose, 

 under the assumed name of Barry Cornwall, but whose real name 

 w!is Bryan Walter Proctor, received his professional education, or 

 at least passed some time in a solicitor's office at Calne. He was 

 contemporary with Byron at Harrow. The atmosphere of a solicitor's 

 office is not generally considered favourable to the Muses, to Clio 

 and Calliope : but genius will triumph over any difficulty, and we 

 may presume that his Harrow associations and the fine air of the 

 downs and other surroundiugs of Calne prevailed to make Barry 

 Cornwall a very distinguished man. 



Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent some time here in 1814 and 1816,, 

 as the guest of a Mr. Morgan, who is described as the son of a 

 wealthy spirit merchant, but who had ruined himself by thoughtless 

 generosity in lending money to people who never repaid him. Some 

 account of Coleridge's life here and his letters to Dr. Brabant, of 

 Devizes, are to be found in the Westminster Review, communicated 

 by Dr. Brabant's daughter, Rufa, afterwards Mrs, Call. The elder 

 Coleridge liked the place : not so his son, Mr. Hartley Coleridge. 

 Hear what he says : — " This was the unhappiest period of my father's 

 life, from the tyranny of opium. Calne is not a pretty place. The 

 soil is clayey and chalky. The stream far from crystal ; the hills 



1 In the Globe newspaper some time ago there was a letter from a correspondent 

 calling attention to the Borough of Calne as a case almost without parallel. It 

 stated that the borough had been represented by the Duckett family from father 

 to son from the time of Queen Elizabeth to George III. But this must be 

 understood to mean, not that there were Ducketts, lineally descended from father 

 to son, in Parliament all that time : but only that all who were in Parliament 

 at intervals were so descended. Out of forty-six Parliaments summoned between 

 Queen Elizabeth and George III. members of the Duckett family appear only in 

 seventeen. 



