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     Some extracts from John Skinner's "Journal of a Somerset 
     Rector 1803-1834.
     These notes cast a few interesting lights on Skinner's time 
     and on his reactionary opinions.
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     p248

     Happy is it that people in the lower ranks of life are not 
     possessed of the same sensibility as their superiors; 
     certain am I that all things are conducted on a much more 
     even footing than they appear to be at first sight - if 
     enjoyment be less, privation is in proportion.

     (Comments on the death of one of his poor parishioners, 
     that the family wouldn't feel the loss too much because 
     they were so low down in the social scale).

     p258

     These gentlemen [Messrs Bowles, Offley and Wansey] are 
     principally engaged in tracing the descents of the 
     landowners in their different districts, which they are 
     enabled better to do by consulting the records and topo- 
     graphical accounts so admirably arranged in Sir Richard 
     Hoare's collection.  Indeed, I believe there is not a 
     library in the kingdom so well supplied in these subjects 
     as that at Stourhead [home of the Hoares], since not only 
     all the public documents of Domesday and the Tower, but 
     every private collection is so admirably arranged that Sir 
     Richard can put his hand on the minutest book at a moment's 
     notice."

     (Makes one somewhat envious.  What happened to this 
     interesting library ? - MF)

     p238

     I accepted Scobel's invitation to dine with him at 
     Farrington.  Before tea we played a match of bowles on the 
     lawn before the house, and I afterwards drove home under a 
     heavy dew.

     (Lawn bowls are also mentioned by Rchd Gough - see 
     MYDDLE.ZIP)

     p361

     Reference to the Great Storm, 26 November 1703, which 
     apparently caused great damage and fatalities.

     p446ff

     Several reports of the widespread outbreak of cholera in 
     the country in 1832.

     p233

     On 24/1/1823 Skinner reports an extreme frost - "The frost 
     so intense last night I could scarcely keep myself alive; 
     the water froze in the pot de chambre, although there was a 
     good fire in my bedroom, and the jug in my wash-hand bason 
     froze solid.  I never experienced anything equal to this, 
     excepting in the hard frost of 1788 when I was in Holland."

     pp91-94

     A long discussion about the (erroneous) beliefs of the 
     Methodists.

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     Noted by Mike Foster, Karori, Wellington 24/11/92
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