New Book – Patrick Brydone, Lennel House

A John Evans has written an excellent book on Patrick Brydone and here is the book's introduction: Born near Berwick upon Tweed in the Scottish Borders, and the son of a Church of Scotland minister, Patrick Brydon served as a second lieutenant in the Seven Years' War, returning from Portugal in 1763. Hearing that other ex-soldiers were becoming guides to those wishing to explore Europe, he established a business as a travelling preceptor in Lausanne on Lake Geneva, showing both the intellectual rigour of what today we would call a scientist or polymath, and an ability to inspire curiosity and the continual search for knowledge in his charges. Publication of a book he wrote in the early 1770s about his travels in Sicily and Malta, when tutor to two sons of the gentry, was a huge success, being published in France, Germany and the USA in various editions. Subsequent commissions took him and his charges t0 Vienna, Berlin, Poland, and Russia and in 1777 Brydone became the tutor to the two elder sons of Lord North, the British Prime Minister at the time. Two years later, North family patronage led to him being made Comptroller of the Stamp Office, a useful sinecure for life. He married in 1785 and settled in Lennel House, Coldstream, His eldest daughter married the son of the Earl of Minto Brydone also hosted Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns, in 1787. His burial plot is within the old Lennel Kirk, having died in 1818.. This excellent book is available from Amberley Publishing and costs £20. 

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