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Gentleman's Magazine 1840 part 2 p.279
folio volumes that she collected of her family documents,
and that are now preserved in Appleby Castle. (preface
p.xii.) Gilpin, in his Tour to the Lakes, ii. 191, says he
had been informed that "the late Earl of Thanet
destroyed" her Journal, "as it contained many severe
remarks on several characters of those times, which the earl
supposed might give offence to their families." But it was
about the same time that Mr. Seward published his extracts.
We have heard that the MS. was mutilated, and for a somewhat
different though equally foolish reason, that is to say, on
the score of some coarsenesses, repugnant to modern
delicacy; but that it was not wholly destroyed. There can be
no question that a judicious selection from all that remains
of her memoirs would form a valuable addition to our
materials of domestic history. As Bishop Rainbow himself
remarked, the Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery
is a subject "fitter for a History than a Sermon."
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