which I sometimes fear that my oldest friends are getting of me, that I am become a hard man, given up to literary and scholastic pursuits, and full of worldly and political views of things. It has given me very great pain to think that some of those whom I most love, and with whom I would most fain be one in spirit, regard my views of things as jarring with their own, and are losing towards me that feeling of Christian brotherhood which I think they once entertained. I am not in the slightest degree speaking of any offence given or received, or any personal decay of regard, but I fancy they look upon me as not quite one with themselves, and as having my affections fixed upon lower objects. Assuredly I have no right to regret that I should be thought deficient in points in which I know I am deficient; but I would most earnestly protest against being thought wilfully and contentedly deficient in them, and not caring to be otherwise. And I cannot help fearing that my conversation with you last winter twelvemonth led you to something, at least, of a similar impression.

XXIX. TO J. T. COLERIDGE, ESQ.

Laleham, April 24, 1828.

It seems an age since I have seen you or written to you; and I hear that you are now again returned to London, and that your eldest boy, I am grieved to find, is not so well and strong as you could wish. I could really be half romantic, yet I do not know that I ought to use any such equivocal epithet. When I think how little intercourse I hold with my most valued friends, it is almost awful to feel the tendencies of life to pare down one's affections and feelings to the minimum compatible with any thing like humanity. There is one's trade and one's family, and beyond it seems as if the great demon of worldly-mindedness would hardly allow one to bestow a thought or care.

But, if it please God, I will not sink into this state without some struggles, at least, against it. I saw Dyson the other day in Oxford, where I went to take my degree of B.D., and he and his wife were enough to freshen one's spirit for some time to come. I wish that you and I could meet oftener, and, instead of that, I fear that when I am at Rugby we shall meet even seldomer; but I trust that we shall meet sometimes still. You know, perhaps, and yet how should you? that my sixth child, and fourth son, was born on the 7th of April, and that his dear mother has been again preserved to me. All the rest of my children are quite well, and they are also tolerably well at the other houses, though the coming parting is a sad cloud both to them and to us. Still, without any affectation, I believe that John Keble is right, and that it is good for us to leave Laleham, because I feel that we are daily getting to regard it as too much of a home. I cannot tell you how we both love it, and its perfect peace seems at times an appalling contrast to the publicity of Rugby. I am sure that nothing could stifle this regret, were it not for my full consciousness that I have nothing to do with rest here, but with labour; and then I can and do look forward to the labour with nothing but satisfaction, if my health and faculties be still spared to me.

I went down to Rugby, a fortnight since, to meet the Trustees. The terms of the school, which were far too low, have been raised on my representation; and there is some possibility of my being put into the situation of the head masters of Eton and Westminster, that is, to have nothing to do with any boarders. I have got six maps for Thucydides, all entirely original, and I have nearly finished half of the last book; so that I hope I may almost say "Italiam! Italiam!"

XXX. TO THE REV. F. C. BLACKSTONE.

Laleham, July 11, 1828.

It would be foolish to talk of the deep love that I bear to Laleham, and the wrench which it will be to part from it; but this is quite consistent with a lively interest in Rugby, and when I strolled with in the meadows there, during our visit of last week, I thought that I already began to feel it as my home. There will be enough to do, I imagine, without any addition; though I really feel very sanguine as to my own relish for the work, and think that it will come more naturally to me than I at first imagined. May God grant that I may labour with an entire confidence in Him, and with none in myself without Him.

XXXI. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ.

Laleham, July 29, 1828.

I never would publish a without a considerable revision of them. I well know their incompleteness, and suspect much worse faults in them. Do not imagine that I neglect your remarks; far from it: I would attend to them earnestly, and would soften gladly any thing that was too harsh, or that might give offence, and would alter the mere inadvertencies of my hasty writing in point of style. But certainly the character of the style I could not alter, because no other would be natural to me; and though I am far from wishing other people to write as I do, yet for myself I hold it best to follow my own fashion. . . .

I owe it to Rugby not to excite needless scandal by an isolated and uncalled-for publication. I shall never be Mr. Dean, nor do I wish it; but having undertaken the office of Dr. Wooll, with double or single l, as best suits your fancy, I do wish to do my utmost in it, and not to throw difficulties in my own way by any impru

a In allusion to the first volume of his Sermons, which was now in the process of publication.

dence. This, of course, would apply either to minor points, or to those on which I distrusted my own competent knowledge. Where I am fully decided on a matter of consequence, I would speak out as plainly and boldly as your heart could wish.

We are all in the midst of confusion; the books all packed, and half the furniture; and on Tuesday, if God, will, we shall leave this dear place, this nine years' home of such exceeding happiness. But it boots not to look backwards. Forwards, forwards, forwards, should be

one's motto. I trust you will see us in our new dwelling ere long; I shall want to see my old friends there, to wear off the gloss of its newness.

XXXII. TO THE REV. JOHN TUCKER.

Laleham, August, 1828.

I am inclined to write to you once again before we leave Laleham, as a sort of farewell from this dear place; and you shall answer it with a welcome to Rugby. You fancy us already at Rugby, and so does J. Keble, from whom I received a very kind letter some time since, directed to me there. But we do not move till Tuesday, when we go, fourteen souls, to Oxford, having taken the whole coach; and on Wednesday we hope to reach Rugby, having in like manner secured the whole Leicester coach from Oxford to Rugby. Our goods and chattels, under convoy of our gardener, are at this time somewhere on the Grand Junction Canal, and will reach Rugby I hope this evening. The poor house here is sadly desolate; all the carpets up, half the furniture gone, and signs of removal everywhere visible. And so ends the first act of my life since I arrived at manhood. For the last eight years it has been a period of as unruffled happiness as I should think could ever be experienced by man. Mary's illness, in 1821, is almost its only dark spot;-and how was that softened and comforted! It is almost a fear

ful consideration; and yet there is a superstitious notion, and an unbelieving one, too, which cannot receive God's mercies as his free gift, but will always be looking out for something wherewith to purchase them. An humbling consideration much rather it is and ought to be; yet all life is humbling, if we think upon it, and our greatest mercies, which we sometimes least think of, are the most humbling of all. . . . The Rugby prospect I contemplate with a very strong interest: the work I am not afraid of, if I can get my proper exercise; but I want absolute play, like a boy, and neither riding nor walking will make up for my leaping-pole and gallows, and bathing, when the youths used to go with me, and I felt completely for the time a boy as they were. It is this entire relaxation, I think, at intervals, such again as my foreign tours have afforded, that gives me so keen an appetite for my work at other times, and has enabled me to go through it not only with no fatigue, but with a sense of absolute pleasure. I believe that I am going to publish a volume of Sermons. You will think me crazed perhaps; but I have two reasons for it: chiefly, the repeated exhortations of several individuals for the last three or four years; but these would not alone have urged me to it, did I not wish to state for my own sake what my opinions really are, on points where I know they have been grievously misrepresented. Whilst I lived here in Laleham my opinions mattered to nobody; but I know that while I was a candidate for Rugby, it was said in Oxford that I did not preach the Gospel, nor even touch upon the great doctrines of Christianity in my sermons; and if this same impression be prevalent now, it will be mischievous to the school in a high degree. Now, if what I really do preach be to any man's notions not the Gospel, I cannot help it, and must be content to abide by the consequences of his opinion; but I do not want to be misunderstood, and accused of omitting things which I do not omit.