1862 October 5 Lynchburg, Va.

[from the diary of William M. Blackford, bank officer and former diplomat with five sons in the Confederate Army]

Sunday 5  Last night was one of the
hottest of the season--unprecedented

in October--Communion occasion-
a great number communed--Charles
& Sue dined with us--Dr. Green &
his wife called in the afternoon I
showed him a second letter recd
from Mr Lamar, giving further in-
formation about Dr. Ford-equally sa-
tisfactory, with the first--Dr. G. not
satisfied--I think his objection to
the match unfounded & the result
from prejudice.  Walked with him
to Merriwethers to have a [bundle?]
Ben called in the evening and
persuaded Eugene to go with him
to Liberty to look at a horse. We
went to church at night & E. went
to stay with Ben at his fathers.
    A curious phenomena is pre-
sented in my memory with respect
to the name of an author  of several
popular works--In 1823 in the
reading room in Fredrick a read in
a number of the Museum of Language &
Literature, an obituary notice of
Wm Coombe, another of Dr. Syntax
in Search of the Picturesque, and of
'the Devil upon two sticks in England
-a very clever imitation or continuation

rather of Le Sage's work.  Formerly[?]
[?] I had read often and admired
prodigiously Lord Lyttletons letters
In this  notice it was stated that
Coombe was the author of the work
-that he possessed himself of facts
in the domestic history of the young
Lord & palmed the work off as
a collection of his correspondence.  This
was  a new news to me-- and hard to
believe--but it was positively asser
-ted & I have frequently seen it since
stated in Biographical  Dictionaries
-now the trick of my memory, generally
so good in all matters of Literary
writing, is that I cannot retain the
name of "Coomb" -After my marriage
and settlement in Fredg, I asserted
that Lyttleton was not the writer of
the letters published as his--It was
controverted-I could not remember the
name of the real author, but know
when I got the fact, and wrote to
young Thomas Seddons then a
student of Yale, and giving him
the reference, he sent me the extent
[?] that I had seen oftime,
had occasion to refer to Coombe

and have never been able to recall
the name, over and over again have
I had to refer to Biographical
Dictionaries & Cyclopedias.  Last
night something reminded me
of L Lyttleton, and of course by a
natural association, of this bête
noire of my memory. It was a long
time before I recovered it--I knew
it began with C. and I proceeded
to recount names, & facts that I
was approaching the real one until
at last I hit upon it.  This is
to me a queer freak of the memory
I make mention of it here as a
physco psychological curiosity and
to refer to the name should I again
forget. Most probably thus recording
it will stamp it in my memory.

MSS 4763