22Jan1867, Lady Herbert's Impressions of Spain

HOLKER, January 22nd, 1867.
—Bitter grey cold : snow again to-night. A poor postman near Compton Place was found frozen to death in his cart holding the reins, when the horse stopped at the post-office. And there have been several other deaths from the same cause. . . .

Finished a silly book upon Spain by Lady Herbert, chiefly filled with eulogies upon the state of religion there, which I suppose is about the most degraded in Christendom, Romanism having overlaid nearly all pure Catholicism. It aggravates me much ; for one who spent 40 years of her life in communion with our own Church, with Sidney Herbert for her husband, and the Bishop of Salisbury for her friend, and who, if she isn't quite a fool (which she isn't) must know something of the devotion and piety and zeal, yes and Catholicism, of the last 30 years in England—that such a one should coolly imply all through that all in England but the Romanist sect are under the sway of bare, cold irreligion.