Record Number: 16553

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I have read the 'bright city' and rejoiced to find your criticism of it so agreeable to my own. Milman is certainly a poet, but he takes a flight higher than he can sustain. He paints too gorgeously and indistinctly, he also whines too much, he is sometimes even liable to cant. I am astonished at your diffidence in judging him: it were well if he always found even critics by profession so well qualified.'

Century:

1800-1849

Date:

unknown

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Thomas Carlyle

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

4 Dec 1795

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer / Academic

Religion:

Lapsed Calvinist

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Henry Hart Milman

Title:

Samor, the Lord of the Bright City

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

First published 1818

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

16553

Source:

Print

Author:

Thomas Carlyle

Editor:

C R Sanders

Title:

The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle

Place of Publication:

Durham, North Carolina

Date of Publication:

1970

Vol:

2

Page:

189

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Thomas Carlyle, C R Sanders (ed.), The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, (Durham, North Carolina, 1970), 2, p. 189, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=16553, accessed: 12 January 2025

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Additional Comments:

Taken from letter from Carlyle to Jane Baillie Welsh, dated 28 October 1822, written at 3 Moray Street. Pages 183 - 190 in this edition. See TC's letter to JBW dated 9th August 1822 in which he sends her the Milman to read - but does not specify whether he has already read it himself at this point. See also JBW's letter to TC c.24th October 1822 in which she gives her opinion of the work.