Journal of a tour to France and Italy, and verse translations by Hudson Gurney (1775-1854), MP, FRS, VPSA.
Contents:-
(1) 'Journal of a Tour through France to Rome & Naples by Hudson Gurney, Esq. M. P.in company with the Earl of Aberdeen & Revd. G. D. Whittington 1802-3' (fol. iii); 19 Nov. 1802-25 Apr. 1803. Describes travelling conditions, social events, and lists monuments and antiquities seen. Some reference to the destruction of property during the revolution, atrocities at Avignon; good reports of Bonaparte and of the Austrians in North Italy. Of more interest for social and political comment (a vendetta murder, condition of the poor in Italy) than for artistic criticism. A posthumous publication by the Rev. George Downing Whittington (d. 1807; see Venn, Alumni Cantab.), An Historical Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France (1809), relates to the same tour. fols. iii, 1-104;-
(2) 'First Part of Aucassin & Nicolette, a Tale from the Fabliaux of Le Grand..'. A translation into English verse; 1813 (fol. 105). fols. 105-36;-
(3) 'First Canto of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso..'. A translation into English verse; 1808 (fol. 137). Gurney's translation of Orlando Furioso was printed for private circulation in 1843. fols. 137-71.
Two impressions of an engraved portrait of Gurney, after J. Opie, 1797, at fols. iv verso, v verso (opposite fol. 106). See Proc., 2nd ser., 3 (1864-7), 112-13 (obituary of Hudson Gurney).