The wisdom of hindsight, by Madamoiselle Biard

5th October 2015
La Vieille from Chants et chansons populaires de la France 1854, Priaulx Library collection
'Réflexion sage, mais un peu Tardive de Madamoiselle Biard,' by the Reverend Elie du Fresne (b. 1692), from his collected poems, Poésie, written c. 1713-1745. Be prepared for 18th-century attitudes! On the flyleaf of the cover is written, 'These pieces of poetry were copied by her late regretted Father, John de Havilland;' the identity of the Miss de Havilland in question is not known. The illustration is from 'La vieille,' or 'The Old Woman,' a song on just this subject, from Chants et chansons populaires de la France, Paris: Garnier Frères, 1854, in the Library Collection.

The Gordons on Guernsey

28th September 2015
By the writer and prolific journalist, Basil Campbell de Guérin. From The Scots Magazine, XLVIII (5), February 1948, in his Scrapbook H, in the Library. Although this is a fascinating article, the premiss upon which De Guérin wrote it is fundamentally flawed; the 92nd Foot did not become the Gordon Highlanders until 1798. This version of the 92nd Regiment was raised in Ireland by George Hewett on 31 December 1793. Also known from October 1794 as Colonel Hewitt's Regiment of Foot, it lasted less than two years, until it was disbanded in October 1795.

Tenure of real property in the island of Guernsey

22nd September 2015
From The Law Magazine and Law Review, or Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence, May-August 1859, pp. 23 ff. Probably a comment on the reaction in Government circles to the Commissioners' Report of 1848, it also happens to provide a helpful explanation of the distribution of landed property and rentes in Guernsey. 'When the right and power is preserved among a free people of regulating their own legal and social customs, the habit of self-government thus engendered generally saves their country from the anomaly and inconvenience of the institutions and procedure being immediately at variance with the wants and character of the people.'

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