James Woodforde

thumb| James Woodforde (27 June 1740 – 1 January 1803) was an English clergyman, mainly in Somerset and Norfolk, remembered as the author of The Diary of a Country Parson. This vivid account of parish life remained unpublished until the 20th century. Quotes Brewed a vessell of strong Beer today. My two large Piggs, by drinking some Beer grounds taking out of one of my Barrels today, got so amazingly drunk by it, that they were not able to stand and appeared like dead things almost, and so remained all night from dinner time today. I never saw Piggs so drunk in my life, I slit their ears for them without feeling. Diary entry (15 April 1778), quoted in The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde. 1758–1781, ed. John Beresford (1924), pp. 222-223 Very great Rebellion in France by the Papers. Diary entry on the fall of the Bastille (24 July 1789), quoted in The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde. Vol. III 1788–1792, ed. John Beresford (1927), p. 124 Sad News from France all anarchy and Confusion. The King, Queen and Royal Family confined at Paris. The Soldiers joined the People, many murdered. Diary entry on the Women's March on Versailles (16 October 1789), quoted in The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde. Vol. III 1788–1792, ed. John Beresford (1927), p. 146 Quotes about James Woodforde Also, like everybody else, apparently, he ate and drank more than could have been good for him. Indeed, the Diary is mainly a record of hearty eating and drinking. This parson notes dishes with a cook's minuteness and bottles with a cellarman's. A. B. W., 'A Diarist. The Parson and the Clerk. Oxford Menus', The Times (11 June 1924), p. 10 Without such records as this Country Parson's, we should never guess how plain men lived in the 18th century. A. B. W., 'A Diarist. The Parson and the Clerk. Oxford Menus', The Times (11 June 1924), p. 10 Nothing terribly exciting ever happened, for instance, to the Reverend James Woodforde, the bachelor incumbant of Weston in Norfolk: yet for 45 years he was able to keep a diary that was fresh and eager almost every day, rich in character and modest incident, and so infectiously alive to the simpler pleasures that even now the senses quicken to read it. Jan Morris, 'Nothing terribly exciting ever happens', The Times (13 August 1981), p. 6 Parson Woodforde's diary...falls into the second rank of English journals. Rural and clerical as it is, it lacks the power and political fascination of Pepys or Nicolson, while being less clever than Evelyn, less poetic than Kilvert, less exotic than Hickey, and less vivacious (certainly less lascivious) than Boswell. It is just a fairly conscientious country clergyman's record of his workaday affairs, kindly, uncontentious, frank: but such were the advantages of life in those less hyped-up times that it is full of astonishments all the same. Jan Morris, 'Nothing terribly exciting ever happens', The Times (13 August 1981), p. 6 The book has been deservedly popular and deservedly praised; and the features which have earned it praise and popularity are not likely soon to lose their attraction. For they show...an extraordinary combination of nature and art, though the art seems to have been quite unconscious. George Saintsbury, 'The Woodforde Diary', The Times (11 July 1930), p. 16 Woodforde's panorama of the village life of late eighteenth-century Norfolk rings with truthfulness. I love those endless menus. Roy Strong, 'Out of the dust, immortality', The Times (4 February 1984), p. 8 I am struck by how even Woodforde's simply expressed, usually short sentences of the daily doings, however inconsequential, rapidly become compulsive reading. Ion Trewin, 'Weston Longeville's parson', The Times (3 June 1978), p. 9 External links Category:1740 births Category:1803 deaths Category:Anglicans from the United Kingdom Category:Diarists Category:Clergy from England Category:University of Oxford alumni