went to visit his
old place and friends in Somerset.--"Interesting, very: received at my
old curacy of Buckland with much joy, and on the whole enjoyed my
visit." At Whitsunday 1827 he came home to enter on St. John's with
Bishop Sandford, being thus half of 1827 in Carrubber's Close and half
in St. John's. I was in Edinburgh then, and can well remember what
general favour accompanied Mr. Ramsay in church and society. Perhaps he
was not prepared for the vehemence of church dissensions among us. I do
not think there was at that time so bitter war between churchmen of the
same profession in England, but the Episcopal Church, of whatever
section, had made great progress then in Scotland. Its fine liturgy, and
more decorous ceremonial, had attracted some. Many of the heads of
country families round Edinburgh have been educated in England, and many
of them have married in England--both circumstances tending to keep up
their attachment to the Episcopal Church; and in their houses the
scholarly, accomplished, agreeable clergyman of the Episcopal Church was
a welcome guest, as well as an adviser and influential friend.

In summer of 1827 the journal tells us his brother Marmaduke paid him a
visit. "We read some Italian--I got a notion of Dante."

At the commencement of 1829 he enters in his journal--"This was a most
important year indeed, the year of my marriage; and what event has been
to me so joyful, so full of interesting recollections?" He tells that in
the summer a visitor came to Scotland--a friend of Lady Dalhousie, and
recommended by her to Lady Robert Kerr, at whose house they met. The
lady was Isabella Cochrane, of the well-known Canadian family; writing
in 1844 he says--"Fifteen years of close acquaintance with that lady
have taught me the best commentary upon the Scripture declaration that a
'virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' I need not say more than
that I believe I owe mainly to her (under Providence) my comfort,
success and position here. But let this suffice. None but myself can
know my full obligations." Next year begins--"As 1829 gave me a wife,
1830 gave me a church, for on the 14th January Bishop Sandford died, and
the whole charge was offered to me, which I undertook for three years
without a curate--i.e. without a man-curate, for a most effective
assistant I had in dearest Isabella, who wrote to my dictation many a
weary hour."

Except a little parcel of letters touching the negotiation with Bi