louring the Lakes and Scotland in iSs7

COLEMAN O. PARSONS

.NE day in the summer of 1974 I was at Home Farm in
Oxfordshire inspecting an almost complete collection
of William jMorris rarities, every item beyond my reach
and, as I comforted myself, out of my collecting range anyway.
Then, my genial and learned host, the rare book dealer Colin
Franklin, brought forth a green morocco volume, gilt-edged and
gold stamped, labeled on the spine Northern Tour i8^j. Measur¬
ing 9x11 1/4 inches, it contained 126 leaves with ornamental
printed borders and an exciting range of versified matter, mostly
rhymed couplets written in an amateur calligrapher's hand, as well
as original pen drawings and tipped-in-engravings of English
towns and landscapes from drawings by Thomas Allom.

"An Excursion to the English Lakes," the opening narrative
poem, had twenty-five leaves on which are chronicled the Lakes
tour, ending whimsically in Aberdeen. The poem, enriched at the
beginning and end by leaves of merry thoughts "Donne 1859,"
included: a pasted in photograph of "The Major," showing white
moustaches and whiskers, mid-lip and chin clean shaven, of which
more hereafter; and a section titled "Private Views of Public
Grounds," embellished with an original drawing of a cottage in
Keswick "Sketched by E. I. Powell 1857," sole indication of pos¬
sible authorship. The second part, "Scottish Tour 1857," had the
greater amplitude of sixty leaves, followed by more drawings and
elaborate prose "Notes." I acquired the volume from Mr. Frank¬
lin, and it has now joined the Rare Book and Manuscript Library's
growing Scottish Collection.

Keeping diaries had long been an English addiction. In his
British Manuscript Diaries of the Nineteenth Century, which in-
cidentaly does not list the Northern Tour, John Stuart Batts in¬
cludes a Commander George Eyre Powell (1790-1855) who filled