ROBERT JAMIESON, A.M. AND F.A.S.

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Robert Jamieson was born in Morayshire, Scotland (he would be educated at King’s College in Aberdeen and become a schoolmaster).

Robert Burnes was inducted as a Mason. In addition, he took a leading part in founding the Tarbolton Bachelors’ Club, a convivial debating society.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1780

ROBERT BURNS

Robert Jamieson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Walter Scott, who in this year was issuing his BALLADS AND LYRICAL PIECES, was granted a permanent post which would relieve him of anxiety for the future as a man with a withered leg, as Clerk of the supreme court of Scotland, the “Court of Session.”

Robert Jamieson’s collection of 149 traditional ballads and songs, along with two lyrics of his own, entitled POPULAR BALLADS AND SONGS, FROM TRADITION, MANUSCRIPTS, AND SCARCE EDITIONS; WITH TRANSLATIONS OF SIMILAR PIECES FROM THE ANCIENT DANISH LANGUAGE, AND A FEW ORIGINALS BY THE EDITOR (Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; Cadell and Davies, and John Murray, London).

1806

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Scott would come to hold Jamieson in high esteem, pointing out his skill in discovering the connection between Scandinavian and Scottish legends, and would help secure for him a government post at Edinburgh.

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

JAMIESON’S BALLADS IJAMIESON’S BALLADS II

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Walter Scott toured the Orkney, Shetland, and Hebridean islands with Robert Lewis Stevenson’s grandfather and a group of other lighthouse commissioners.

Sir Walter visited Malcolm Laing at his estate on Orkney: “Our old acquaintance, though an invalid, received us kindly; he looks very poorly, and cannot walk without assistance, but seems to retain all the quick, earnest, and vivacious intelligence of his character and manner.”

Robert Jamieson, Henry William Weber, and Walter Scott’s ILLUSTRATIONS OF NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES: FROM THE EARLIER TEUTONIC AND SCANDINAVIAN ROMANCES; BEING AN ABSTRACT OF THE BOOK OF HEROES, AND NIBELUNGEN LAY; WITH TRANSLATIONS OF METRICAL TALES, FROM THE OLD GERMAN, DANISH, SWEDISH, AND ICELANDIC LANGUAGES; WITH NOTES AND DISSERTATIONS (Edinburgh: Printed by J. Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London; and John Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh).

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1814

NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES

Robert Jamieson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

In this year Thomas De Quincey, an English opium addict,1 wrote his mother that his intention was to become the intellectual benefactor of “my species,” to place education upon a new footing, to be the first founder of

1818

1. In studying the early 19th Century in the US, we are studying a period in which opium was legal, omnipresent, and cheap. A child could push a penny across a market counter and obtain opium to make it through the school day, literally. Yet nowhere do we find any remark about opium withdrawal presenting any sort of problem. Today, I understand, opium is widely used in elder homes in England, and the chief problem with this is that it tends to cause a degree of constipation. The nurses need to keep after these oldsters to hydrate themselves and add fiber to their diets.Today, of course, there would be much talk about addiction and withdrawal. However, do we know for sure that opium is addictive?It may be that the “addiction and withdrawal” scenario which we have constructed is a social consequence of a socially imposed illegality and scarcity and expense. It may be that we focus on this “addiction and withdrawal” scenario in order to legitimate our social taboos about recreational drug use. Too sudden withdrawal from a customary dose of opium can definitely be unpleasant and can definitely have health side-effects. Illegality, and the consequent scarcity and expense, however, have created this situation in which withdrawal from a customary dose of opium can easily become too sudden. For instance, nowadays a person who is accustomed to a daily dose of opium may be arrested for theft (because due to the artificially high cost of a dose of opium, theft had become a way of life for them), and when thrown into jail, suddenly the customary dose would be unavailability and the result would be a very unpleasant and unhealthy “cold turkey” withdrawal. However, the determinants of that scenario would be in the social situation as now constructed by us (illegality, scarcity, expense) rather than in the substance itself or in the practice itself.I have been told, and I don’t know whether this is accurate or inaccurate, that in China, when a person has needed to withdraw from opium use for one reason or another, withdrawal has not been regarded as any sort of problem. One simply reduces one’s dose gradually until use ceases. The 1994 movie “To Live” (directed by Zhang Yimou based on a novel by Yu Hua) may be instructive in that regard, for in this movie a wealthy opium user is portrayed as losing his money by gambling, and needing consequently to discontinue his opium use, and in this movie, although his financial loss is depicted as having a great impact on his life and the life of his family, his withdrawal itself is treated by the script and the director as being entirely unremarkable.We do know that there is such a thing as “the addictive personality.” There are in fact compulsions and they do in fact cause problems. A person who is compulsive in this way may select opium use as his or her compulsion, and this may be an unpleasant thing, but I would wonder: is the unpleasantness of this a consequence of the substance, opium, or is it a consequence of the mental condition, compulsiveness? If the unpleasantness of this is indeed a consequence of the substance, opium, then of course we are doing the correct and the effective thing, in attempting to control use of the substance. However, if the unpleasantness of this is a consequence of the mental condition, compulsiveness, then what we are doing, in attempting to control opium, is evading the real problem, while persecuting people who have the mental disorder of being compulsive.It seems to me that we simply have not done the research which would indicate to us, whether the problem is opium (or, expanding this, recreational drugs in general) or whether the problem is compulsiveness (in its many manifestations). Until we have done that research, I would suggest, we are the blind leading the blind, and cannot even begin a proper study of the 19th Century, let alone a proper management of the 21st Century.

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

a true Philosophy, and to be the re-establisher in England (with great accessions) of Mathematics.

With Wordsworth, De Quincey published CLOSE COMMENTS UPON A STRAGGLING SPEECH, a Tory denunciation of Henry Brougham, an Independent Whig candidate in the parliamentary election campaign at Westmorland. He was appointed editor of the local Tory newspaper, The Westmorland Gazette. He slid deeper into debt.

Another English opium eater, William Wilberforce, was in this year managing with medical assistance to bring

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

himself down to a maintenance dosage of 12 grains a day.

During this year and the next the daily dosage maintained by Walter Scott, who had completed ROB ROY and THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN and was writing THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, would be 200 drops of laudanum

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

and 6 grains of opium.2

2. Hayter, A. OPIUM AND THE ROMANTIC IMAGINATION. London, 1968.

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

At the author’s request the Scottish Regalia, which is to say the Crown and Sceptre and Sword of State presented in 1507 to James IV by Pope Julius II, were recovered from a dusty trunk and displayed to him.

Robert Jamieson and Walter Scott edited the 5th edition of a 1754 volume, LETTERS FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND TO HIS FRIEND IN LONDON: CONTAINING THE DESCRIPTION OF A CAPITAL TOWN IN THAT NORTHERN COUNTRY, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF SOME UNCOMMON CUSTOMS OF THE INHABITANTS; LIKEWISE AN ACCOUNT OF THE HIGHLANDS, WITH THE CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THE HIGHLANDERS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A LETTER RELATING TO THE MILITARY WAYS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS, BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1726 (two volumes, London: Printed for Rest Fenner, Paternoster-Row).

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

EDWARD BURT’S LETTERS

EDWARD BURT’S LETTERS

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 30, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau began to spend some of his days in the “Poetry Alcove” at Gore Hall, the new Harvard Library, reading in Geoffrey Chaucer and Sir Walter Raleigh.

We suppose he didn’t find in that alcove anything quite as pretty as the page shown on a following screen, from an original copy of Poet Laureate John Gower’s CONFESSIO AMANTIS:

1841

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

He checked out the Reverend Professor Thomas Warton, D.D.’s THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY: FROM THE CLOSE OF THE ELEVENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (Ed. Richard Price. London: T. Tegg, 1824).

He also checked out, again, the initial volume of THE CANTERBURY TALES OF CHAUCER; WITH AN ESSAY ON HIS LANGUAGE AND VERSIFICATION, AN INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE, NOTES AND A GLOSSARY BY THO. TYRWHITT, ESQ.... (London: W. Pickering, 1830).

THOMAS WARTON ITHOMAS WARTON IITHOMAS WARTON IIITHOMAS WARTON IV

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Nov. 30. Tuesday. Cambridge. — When looking over the dry and dusty volumes of the English poets,I cannot believe that those fresh and fair creations I had imagined are contained in them. English poetry fromGower down, collected into one alcove, and so from the library window compared with the commonest nature,seems very mean. Poetry cannot breathe in the scholar’s atmosphere. The Aubreys and Hickeses, with all theirlearning, prophane it yet indirectly by their zeal. You need not envy his feelings who for the first time hascornered up poetry in an alcove.I can hardly be serious with myself when I remember that I have come to Cambridge after poetry; and while Iam running over the catalogue and collating and selecting, I think if it would not be a shorter way to a completevolume to step at once into the field or wood, with a very low reverence to students and librarians. Milton didnot foresee what company he was to fall into. On running over the titles of these books, looking from time totime at their first pages or farther, I am oppressed by an inevitable sadness. One must have come into a libraryby an oriel window, as softly and undisturbed as the light which falls on the books through a stained window,and not by the librarian’s door, else all his dreams will vanish. Can the Valhalla be warmed by steam and go byclock and bell?Good poetry seems so simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not alwayspoets. Poetry is, nothing but healthy speech. Though the speech of the poet goes to the heart of things, yet he isthat one especially who speaks civilly to Nature as a second person and in some sense is the patron of the world.Though more than any he stands in the midst of Nature, yet more than any he can stand aloof from her. The bestlines, perhaps, only suggest to me that that man simply saw or heard or felt what seems the commonest fact inmy experience.One will know how to appreciate Chaucer best who has come down to him the natural way through the verymeagre pastures of Saxon and ante-Chaucerian poetry. So human and wise he seems after such diet that we areas liable to misjudge him so as usually.

{1/4th page missing}

vulgar — lies very near to them.

{3/4ths page blank}

{1/4th page missing}

The Saxon Poetry extant seems of a more serious and philosophical cast than the very earliest that can be called

CANTERBURY TALES, I

JOHN AUBREY

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

English— It has more thought, but less music. It translates Boethius, it paraphrases the Hebrew Bible, itsolemnly sings of war –of life and death– and chronicles events— The earliest English poetry is tinctured withromance through the influence of the Normans, as the Saxon was not— The ballad and Metrical Romancebelong to this period. Those old singers were for the most part imitators or translators — Or will it not appearwhen viewed at a sufficient distance — that our brave new poets are also secondary as they, and refer the eyethat reads them and their poetry too, back and backward without end?3

Nothing is so attractive and unceasingly curious as character. There is no plant that needs such tender treatment,there is none that will endure so rough. It is the violet and the oak. It is the thing we mean, let us say what wewill. We mean our own character, or we mean yours. It is divine and related to the heavens, as the earth is bythe flashes of the Aurora. It has no acquaintance nor companion. It goes silent and unobserved longer than anyplanet in space, but when at length it does show itself, it seems like the flowering of all the world, and its beforeunseen orbit is lit up like the trail of a meteor. I hear no good news ever but some trait of a noble character.It reproaches me plaintively. I am mean in contrast, but again am thrilled and elevated that I can see my ownmeanness, and again still, that my own aspiration is realized in that other. You reach me, my friend, not by yourkind or wise words to me here or there; but as you retreat, perhaps after years of vain familiarity, some gesture

3. This paragraph needs to be understood in the context of the various texts upon which Thoreau had relied while a student at Harvard College, texts which have been identified as: the Reverend Joseph Bosworth’s THE ELEMENTS OF ANGLO=SAXON GRAMMAR ... (London: Printed for Harding, Mavor, and Lepard, 1823), the Reverend John Josias Conybeare’s ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY, EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES, INTRODUCTORY NOTICES, &C., BY HIS BROTHER WILLIAM DANIEL CONYBEARE (London: Harding and Lepard, 1826), the three volumes of Lord Bishop Thomas Percy’s RELIQUES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY (London: J. Dodsley, 1765), the three volumes of Joseph Ritson’s ANCIENT ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES (London: W. Bulmer, for G. & W. Nicol, 1802), the four volumes of Thomas Evans’s OLD BALLADS, HISTORICAL AND NARRATIVE, WITH SOME OF MODERN DATE COLLECTED FROM RARE COPIES AND MANUSCRIPTS... A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED FROM PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, BY HIS SON, R.H. EVANS (London: Printed for R.H. Evans, by W. Bulmer and co., 1810), and the two volumes of Robert Jamieson’s POPULAR BALLADS AND SONGS, FROM TRADITIONAL MANUSCRIPTS AND SCARCE EDITIONS; WITH TRANSLATIONS OF SIMILAR PIECES FROM THE ANCIENT DANISH LANGUAGE, AND A FEW ORIGINALS BY THE EDITOR. (Edinburgh: A. Constable and co.; [etc. etc.], 1806).

BOSWORTH’S ANGLOSAXON

CONYBEARE’S ANGLOSAXON

THOMAS PERCY’S RELIQUES

RITSON’S ROMANCES IRITSON’S ROMANCES IIRITSON’S ROMANCES III

EVANS’S OLD BALLADS IEVANS’S OLD BALLADS IIEVANS’S OLD BALLADS IIIEVANS’S OLD BALLADS IV

JAMIESON’S BALLADS IJAMIESON’S BALLADS II

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

or unconscious action in the distance speaks to me with more emphasis than all those years. I am not concernedto know what eighth planet is wandering in space up there, or when Venus or Orion rises, but if, in any cot toeast or west and set behind the woods, there is any planetary character illuminating the earth.

Packed in my mind lie all the clothesWhich outward nature wears,For, as its hourly fashions change,It all things else repairs.My eyes look inward, not without,And I but hear myself,And this new wealth which I have gotIs part of my own pelf.For while I look for change abroad,I can no difference find,Till some new ray of peace uncalledLumines my inmost mind,As, when the sun streams through the wood,Upon a winter’s morn,Where’er his silent beams may strayThe murky night is gone.How could the patient pine have knownThe morning breeze would come,Or simple flowers anticipateThe insect’s noonday hum,Till that new light with morning cheerFrom far streamed through the aisles,And nimbly told the forest treesFor many stretching miles?

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

December 8, Wednesday: Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, THE PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVICES, REPRINTED FROM THE EDITIONS OF 1576, 1580, & 1600. AND ENGLAND’S HELICON, FROM THE EDITIONS OF 1600 & 1614. WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY SIR EGERTON BRYDGES, K.J. (London: Printed by T. Bensley, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, for Robert Triphook, 37, St. James’s Street. 1812).

Thoreau would copy a couple of poems by Edmund Mary Bolton (E.B.) into his 1st Commonplace Book:

A PASTORALL ODE TO AN HONOURABLE FRIEND. As to the blooming prime,Bleake Winter being fled,From compasse of the clime,Where Nature lay as dead,The riuers dull’d with time,The greene leaues withered.

Fresh Zephyri (the westeren brethren) be :So th’ honour of your favouor is to me.

For as the plaines reuiue,And put on youthfull greene:As plants begin to thriue,That disattir’d had beene ;And arbours now aliue,In former pompe are seene.

So if my Spring had any flowers before :Your breath Fauonius hath encreast the store.

Finis. E.B.

THE SHEPHEARD’S SONG: A CAROLL OR HIMNE FOR CHRISTMAS.

Sweet Musicke, sweeter farreThen any song is sweet :Sweet Musicke, heauenly rare,Mine eares, (O peeres) doth greete

Yon gentle flocks, whose fleeces, pearl’d with dewe,Resemble heauen, whom golden drops make bright :Listen, O listen, now, O not to youOur pipes make sport to shorten wearie night.

But voyces most diuine,Make blissfull harmonie :Voyces that seeme to shine,For what else cleares the skie ?

Tunes can we heare, but not the singers see,The tunes diuine, and so the singers be.

Loe, how the firmamentWithin an azure fold,The flock of starres hath pent,That we might them behold.

Yet from their beames proceedeth not this light,Nor can their christals such reflection giue.What then doth make the element so bright ?The heauens are come downe vpon earth to liue.

But harken to the song,

ENGLAND’S HELICON

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Glory to glories King :And peace all men among,These queristers doe sing.

Angels they are, as also (Shepheards) hee,Whom in our feare we doe admire to see.

Let not amazement blindeYour soules, (said he) annoy :To you and all mankinde,My message bringeth ioy.

For loe the world’s great Shepheard now is borne,A blessed babe, an infant full of power :After long night, vp-risen is the morne,Renowning Bethlem in the Sauiour.

Sprung is the perfect day,By prophets seene a farre :Sprung is the mirthfull May,Which Winter cannot marre.

In Dauid’s citie doth this sunne appeare :Clouded in flesh, yet Shepheards sit we here.

Finis. E.B.

He would also copy an a cappella song for five voices from 1588 by William Byrd (circa 1540-July 4, 1623), into his 1st Commonplace Book:

THE HEARD-MAN’S HAPPIE LIFE. What pleasure haue great Princes,

More daintie to their choice;Then Heard-men wilde, who carelesse

In quiet life reioyce ? And fortune’s fate not fearing,

Sing sweet in Sommer morning.

Their dealings plaine and rightfull, Are voyd of all deceit:

They neuer know how spightful,It is to kneele and waite,

On fauourite presumptuous, Whose pride is vaine and sumptuous.

All day their flocks each tendeth.At night they take their rest:

More quiet then who sendethHis ship into the east;

Where gold and pearle are plentie,But getting very daintie.

For lawyers and their pleading,They ’steeme it not a straw:

They thinke that honest meaning,Is of itselfe a law ;

Where conscience iudgeth plainely,They spend no money vainley.

Oh happy who thus liueth,Not caring much for gold :

With cloathing which suffiseth,Too keepe him from the cold.

Though poore and plaine his diet,Yet merrie it is and quiet.

Finis. Out of M. Bird’s set Songs.

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

He would also copy a couple of poems by William Hunnis into his 1st Commonplace Book:

Wodenfrides Song in Praise of Amargana.The sunne the season in each thingRevives new pleasures, the sweet SpringHath put to flight the Winter keene,To glad our Lovely Sommer Queene.

The pathes where Amargana treadsWith flowrie tap’stries Flora spreads,And Nature clothes the ground in greene,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

The groaves put on their rich aray,With Hawthorne bloomes imbroydered gay,And sweet perfum’d with Eglantine,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

The silent River stayes his courseWhilst playing on the christall sourseThe silver scaled fish are seene,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

The Woode at her faire sight reioycesThe little birds with their lowd voycesIn consort on the bryers beene,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

The fleecie Flockes doo scud and skipThe Wood-Nimphs, fawnes and Satires trip,And daunce the Mirtle trees betweene,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

Great Pan (our God), for her deere sakeThis feast and meeting bids us makeOf Sheepheards, Lads, and Lasses sheene,To glad our lovely Sheepheards Queene.

And every Swaine his chaunce doth proueTo winne faire Amargana’s love,In sporting strifes quite voide of spleene,To glad our lovely Sommer Queene.

All happines let Heaven her lend.And all the Graces her attendThus bid we pray the muses nine.Long live our lovely Sommer Queene.

Finis. W.H.

Another of the same.Happy sheepheards sit and see, with joy

The peerelesse wight;For whose sake Pan keepes from ye annoy

And gives delight.Blessing this pleasant springHer praises must I sing.List you Swaines, list to me;

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The whiles your Flocks feeding be.

First her brow a beauteous globe I deemeAnd golden haire;

And her cheeke Auroraes roabe dooth seemeBut farre more faire,

Her eyes like starres are brightAnd dazle with their light.Rubies her lips to see,But to tast, nectar they be.

Orient pearles her teeth, her smile dooth linkethe graces three;

Her white necke dooth eyes beguile to thinke it Iuorie.

Alas, her Lilly handHow it dooth me commaund?Softer silke none can beAnd whiter milk none can see.

Circe’s wand is not so straite as isHer body small;

But two pillers beare the waight of thisMaiestick Hall.

Those be I you assureOf Alabaster purePolish’d fine in each partNe’re Nature yet shewed like Art.

How shall I her pretty tread expressewhen she dooth walke?

Scarse she dooth the Primerose head depresseor tender stalke

Of blew-veined VioletsWhereon her foote she sets.Vertuous she is, for we findIn bodye faire, beauteous minde.

Live faire Amargana still extoldIn all my rime;

Hand want Art when I want will, t’unfoldher worth divine.

But now my Muse dooth rest,Dispaire clos’d in my brest,Of the valour I sing;Weake faith that no hope dooth bring.

Finis. W.H.

He also checked out the two volumes of Robert Jamieson’s POPULAR BALLADS AND SONGS, FROM TRADITIONAL MANUSCRIPTS AND SCARCE EDITIONS; WITH TRANSLATIONS OF SIMILAR PIECES FROM THE ANCIENT DANISH LANGUAGE, AND A FEW ORIGINALS BY THE EDITOR. (2 Volumes; Edinburgh: A. Constable and co.; [etc. etc.], 1806), and put his notes on this reading in his “Miscellaneous Extracts, 1836-1840” notebook now on file at the Pierpont Morgan Library under accession number MA594.

JAMIESON’S BALLADS IJAMIESON’S BALLADS II

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Thoreau also checked out THE WORKS OF JAMES I, KING OF SCOTLAND (Perth, 1786). SCOTLAND

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Thoreau was consulting a edition of this treatise formed upon Tytler’s edition and printed in Perth in 1786 by Robert Morison, junior, for R. Morison and son, and sold by G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, an edition which contained in addition to the original materials some Scottish poems ascribed to him: “The Kingis quair; a poem,” “Peblis to the Play,” “Christis Kirk on the grene,” “The gaberiungioman,” and “The jolie beggar.” Prefixed was a portrait of the King, by Beugo, from the original in the Keilberg Gallery.

Unfortunately, neither the original of this nor its 1786 recapitulation have as yet been electronically captured. All that I am able to show you, electronically, is THE WORKS OF JAMES THE FIRST, KING OF SCOTLAND, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. ALSO, SOME BRIEF REMARKS ON THE INTIMATE CONNEXION OF THE SCOTS LANGUAGE WITH THE OTHER NORTHERN DIALECTS. AND A DISSERTATION ON SCOTTISH MUSIC; THE WHOLE ACCOMPANIED WITH NOTES, HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY. ... (Perth: Printed by Crerar and Son. For G. Clark, Aberdeen. 1827). How similar this edition is to the one that Thoreau consulted, I cannot say.

He also checked out A SELECTION FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS CAREW (Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; By John Evans ... and sold by Thomas Fry & Co. ..., Bristol, 1810).

WORKS OF JAMES THE FIRST

THOMAS CAREW’S POEMS

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Thoreau would copy some of these poems, such as Richard Barnfield’s “The Unknown Shepheard’s Complaint,” into his 1st Commonplace Book.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

RICHARD BARNFIELD

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

September 24, Tuesday: Robert Jamieson died.

The Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall got married with Caroline Wells Healey, whom he had first met during his stay at Divinity school and who had been serving as Vice-Principal of Miss English’s School for Young Ladies in Georgetown, District of Columbia.

They would evangelize together and the wife would briefly carry on alone after the husband again fell ill, in Boston.

The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker about his excellent adventure at Brook Farm, leading Mrs. Sophia Dana Ripley, the Reverend George Ripley’s first wife, and her niece Sarah F. Stearns in the direction of the Catholic Church:

(It has been alleged that of the Brook Farmers, William J. Davis, Buckley Hastings, George C. Leach, Charles King Newcomb, and Arthur Sumner also eventually converted to Catholicism.)

1844

I have made slow progress, though a few of the preliminary steps have been taken, and I am in the hands of my confessor [Father John Bernard Fitzpatrick, 1812-1866], and follow his directions.… I was at Brook Farm last Sunday, & prepared a discourse to them. Two or three will become Catholics. Mr. [George] Ripley, I fear is worse than an infidel. The atmosphere of the place is horrible. Have no faith in such associations. They will be only gatherings of all that is vile, to fester and breed corruption.

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: March 1, 2015

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Robert Jamieson

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

ROBERT JAMIESON ROBERT JAMIESON

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.