(Howard, George), Earl of Carlisle
Two lectures, on the poetry of Pope, and on his own travels in America, by the Right Honourable the Earl of Carlisle. Delivered to the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution & Literary society, December 5th and 6th, 1850.
Leeds, “printed by Edward Baines and Sons” 1850.
Full Description
4to. 44pp. Original wrappers. Ink presentation inscription on front free endpaper from Lord Carlisle to Mrs.Howard (wife of Rev.Henry Howard, Dean of Lichfield).
These lectures, printed primarily for local circulation by the printing firm headed by the future Sir Edward Baines, Liberal MP for Leeds 1859-74, reflect Lord Carlisle’s love of literature and his interest in people and travel. His visit to America, lasting for about a year in 1841-2, took him to twenty-two of the twenty-six states then comprising the USA (as well as to Canada and Cuba), and his lecture records that while in the USA he took the opportunity to meet many of the leading personalities of the time. As a committed Evangelical Christian he found himself much more in sympathy with the culture of the North-Eastern states than with that of the Southern slave-owning states, and he was not impressed by the city of Washington DC, except for the opportunity that a month’s stay there offered of attending the debates of Congress, where he admired the oratory of the veteran ex-President John Quincy Adams.