MELVILLE’S GRANDFATHERS
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Weaver, Raymond M. (Raymond Melbourne)
Contemporary with Allan, there lived in Scotland, direct descendants of these Elizabethan Melvilles. One year before Herman’s birth, Allan, with admirable republican simplicity, decided, during one of the frequent business trips that took him across the Atlantic, to look up his titled Scotch cousins, and pay them the compliments of his dutiful respects. The record of this adventure is preserved in Allan’s journal, bound in vellum of a lurid emerald green. The entries are characteristically business-like, and stoically naked of personal reflections:
May 22, 1818—Visited Melville house, the seat of the Earl of Leven & Melville at 2 P.M., 14 miles—the Earl & Family being absent, left them at 4 A.M. & dined at the New Inn at the Junction of the Perth, Cupar & Dundee Roads, 6 miles.
May 26, 1818—Reached Melville house at ½ past 3 P.M.—10 miles—& met with a very hospitable & friendly reception from his lordship & family.
May 27, 1818—Left Melville house at ½ past 11 in his lordship’s gig with a lacquey to meet the coach at the New Inn.
It would, perhaps, be entertaining to know just exactly what Alexander, 7th Earl of Levin and 6th Earl of Melville, who was also Viscount Kirkaldie, Lord Melville of Monymaill, Lord Bolgonie, and Lord Raith, Monyraill and Balwearie, thought in his heart of Allan Melville of Boston, merchant, and importer of commodities from France.