Diary of Charles Francis Adams, volume 4
1832-11-03
Fine morning though a little colder. I went to town accompanied by my wife. Left her at the house and soon afterwards went up there myself. Found all the workmen actively occupied in their various repairs and that my directions were at last in the way of being thoroughly executed. Left the house and did some business afterwards at the Office with Mr. Conant and others. Thus went the morning.
Returned to Quincy with my Wife at one. Engaged after dinner again with Mr. Greenleaf. Finished looking over the books and made up the missing list, which is considerable. A good many of them will however be found hereafter among the scattering works not numbered.1
In the evening, Mr. Beale came in and passed two hours. Nothing new. Looked over Hume’s Account of the Reign of Richard and Henry but found little that was new. Read also my father’s Poem of Dermot MacMorrogh, which is just out. There is vigor in the lines, and occasionally a high order of poetry. But as a whole, the work wants invention and imagination. It is totally deficient in descriptive imagery and leans as almost all my father’s poetry does, too much to the didactic style. This to the general is caviare. My opinion is, he would have done better not to have published it, but my opinion is worth very little in cases of this kind.2
As a condition of the gift of his library JA required that a catalogue of his books be made and published. This was done: Deeds and Other Documents Relating to the Several Pieces of Land and to the Library Presented to the Town
391
of Quincy, by President Adams, Together with a Catalogue of the Books, Cambridge, 1823. Although the books are not numbered in the catalogue, it would appear that at the time of the preparation of the catalogue or earlier, numbers were affixed to most but not all of the books listed in the catalogue. The catalogue would have served as the basis for the inventory being made.
On the bibliographic history of Dermot MacMorrogh, or the Conquest of Ireland; an Historical Tale of the Twelfth Century, see Bemis, JQA
, 2:218. This narrative, “the subject of my own selection; the moral clear and palpable; the characters and incidents strictly historical; the story complete and entire,” in 266 stanzas of Byronic ottava rima, was written principally in Washington from February to April 1831. JQA described the method: “I usually compose one, sometimes two, occasionally three [stanzas], before rising, between three and five o’clock, and usually from three to five in my walk round the Capitol Square. These stanzas I retain in memory, and write down after returning home, sometimes before, sometimes after, breakfast.... I read every day to my wife what I have composed in the twenty-four hours” (JQA, Memoirs
, 8:352, 355).
Nearly a year after publication, in Oct. 1833, when he was preparing copy for a second edition, JQA expressed his own judgment of the poem: “Scarcely any man in this country who has ever figured in public life has ever ventured into the field of general literature — none successfully. I have attempted it... in this poem of Dermot MacMorrogh, which is original, and at once a work of history, imagination, and poetry.... Like the rest of American poetry, it resembles the juice of American grapes — it has not, in ripening, the property of acquiring alcohol enough to keep it in preservation. I have pushed my experiment on the public temper far enough” (Memoirs, 9:24).
Copies of Dermot MacMorrogh in several stages of its composition, two in JQA’s hand and one in CFA’s, are in the Adams Papers (Microfilms, Reel Nos. 237, 242).
1832-11-04
Morning windy but mild. I was occupied all day in finishing the various little occupations which have engaged me since my residence here and in returning to their places the various books, so as not to break up sets—A thing which in so large a library is exceedingly likely to happen.
Attended divine service and heard Mr. Whitney all day. My habit of inattention to him is very much fixed. Afternoon drew up the Records as Clerk of the Adams Temple and School Fund and put away the book for the Season.1 Read a part of Brown’s book on Antimasonry, the most extraordinary literary production of modern times. This is the book, that was sent to my father with these words in a fly leaf, “Read this and be cautious.”2
Mr. Degrand and Mr. W. W. Clapp, Proprietor of the Evening Gazette,3 came here and took tea and spent the evening. Much conversation upon Politics, the result of the Philadelphia Election, a movement of parties to bring Mr. Webster and my father into collision,4 and some scientific discussion.5 I read a few of the letters of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale.
The Book of Records of the Supervisors of the Adams Temple and School Fund, beginning 3 Feb. 1827, is now held by the City of Quincy as a part of its municipal records at the City Hall, in the keeping of the City Historian, William Churchill Edwards. For a facsimile reproduction of CFA’s first entry as clerk of the Supervisors see Descriptive List of Illustrations in the present volume p. ix–x.
JQA’s copy of the book is missing. The work referred to is probably that by Henry Brown, A Narrative of the Anti-Masonick Excitement in the Western Part of the State of New York, 1826–1829, Batavia, N.Y., 1829.
“In Mr. Clapp’s paper there are several extracts both from the preface
“They ... said something of a project talked of they knew not by whom, to place me in the Senate U.S. instead of Mr. Webster” (same).
See below, entry for 18 Nov., note.