'To amuse ourselves at the inns on this road we brought with us Jackson's "30 Letters" & Moritz's "Travels in England" (both in our Society) but having finish'd the latter (w'ch John was now reading) & Mrs M being reading the other, I got Mrs Radcliffe's novel of the "Sicilian Romance" from the Library there, which I this day began reading & was much pleased with.'
'Read Jackson's (of Exeter) "Four Ages". He inverts the usual order; and promises halycon days, from the improvement of every art and every science, in the golden age to which we are rapidly advancing...'
'I don't think, talking of Americans, that I've told you about an old couple called Williams Jackson who have "debouch�s" here as the trimmings of an American commission sent out on Persian relief work. He's a learned Professor who wrote the "Life of Zoroaster" and other works (all of which I have by good fortune read) and she's a nice old thing [...] I've made bosom friends with both of them, especially with the Professor. They brim over with universal kindness and American sentimentality — a quality quite as truly American as hard-headedness.'
