Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-10-07
Morning cloudy and mild. The Weather is on the whole fine for the Season. Morning passed in reading Lingard, previous to divine Service which I attended all day. It was Communion day, and Mr. Whitney preached two Sermons the purport of which did not make the least impression upon my mind. My habit of attention built up with so much care last Winter, has nearly vanished.
Miss Smith dined at our house. I can account for my Afternoon, by having read a little of Lingard and a Sermon of one John Balguy upon Censoriousness in a Collection called the English Preacher.1 I tried to find some Account of the Author but did not succeed. We want a later biographical Work.2 I thought the Discourse good, but not so superior as I had been led to expect from the character given to him in a number I once saw of the Edinburgh Review.
Quiet evening. Conversation. Finished the second Volume of Lingard, and read the Idler as usual.
The collection of sermons published as The English Preacher, 9 vols., London, 1773, and now at MQA has JQA’s bookplate in each of the volumes; however, the set was clearly that used over a long period of time by CFA. In 1838–1842, reading a sermon each Sunday and recording the reading in the volumes, he covered the whole collection. Archbishop Tillotson and Balguy are more exten-375sively represented than any other divines, Balguy having at least one sermon in each of the volumes and twelve in all.
An account of the life of John Balguy (1686–1748), English divine and religious controversialist, appeared in a later edition of the Biographia Britannica than that in JQA’s library and now at MQA; see above, entry for 15 July, note, and the notice of Balguy in
DNB
.