We had a very delightful visit from the Cornishes early in December; Mrs. Cornish I had only seen for a few minutes at your house since the winter of 1827; and Essy I had not seen at all since she was a baby. I learnt from Cornish, what I never knew before, the especial ground of Keble's alienation from me; it appears that he says that "I do not believe in the Holy Catholic Church." Now that I do not believe in it in Keble's sense is most true; I would just as soon worship Jupiter; and Jupiter's idolatry is scarcely farther from Christianity, in my judgment, than the idolatry of the Priesthood; but, as I have a strong belief in the Holy Catholic Church, in my sense of it, I looked into Pearson on the Creed, and read through his whole article on the subject, which I had not for many years, to see whether my sense of it was really different from that of the most approved writers of our Church; and I found only one line in all Pearson's article that I should not agree with, and in his summing up or paraphrase of the words of the Creed, where he says what we should mean when we say "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," I agree entirely. I do not say that Pearson's opinions on Church government are exactly the same as mine,—I dare say they are not; but he does not venture to say that his opinions are involved in the words of the Creed, nor would he have said that a man did not believe in the Holy Catholic Church, because he did not believe in Apostolical succession. Meantime, it has been a pleasure to me to find that my Sermons on Prophecy have given no offence to the Newmanites, but rather have conciliated them, as far as they go, which was one of my main objects in publishing them. I am afraid that I cannot expect the same toleration to be extended to the new volume of my Sermons which is going to be published; for, although they are not controversial, yet, as embracing a great many points, they cannot avoid collision with those whose opinions are the very opposite to mine, nor should I think it right to leave out every thing which the Newmanites would object to,

any more than Newman would think it right to omit in his sermons all that I should object to. Yet I still hope that the volume will give no unnecessary offence even to those from whom I differ most widely.

CCLVII. TO W. BALSTON, ESQ.

(On the death of his son.)

January, 1841.

Miss H- -'s great kindness has given us constant information of the state of your son Henry; and I was happy to find that so many of his brothers were with him. I believe that I am much more disposed to congratulate you on his account than to condole with you; at least, as the father of five sons, I feel that nothing could make me so happy for any of them as to be satisfied that they were so loved by God, and so fashioned by His Spirit to a fitness for His kingdom, as is the case with your dear son Henry.

CCLVIII. TO REV. TREVENEN PENROSE.

Fox How, January 6, 1841. We have received from Miss H- a long account of the last days of H. Balston's life, and I never read any thing more beautiful. He seemed to be aware of the coming of death, step by step; and some of his expressions at the very last seem more strikingly to connect this present existence with another than any thing I ever heard. He actually laid himself down to die in a particular posture, as a man lays himself down to sleep, and even so he did die. His state of mind was quite heavenly.

We are enjoying this place as usual, though I am obliged to work very hard, with my History and letters. The History is intensely interesting, and I feel to regard it more and more with something of an artist's feeling as to the composition and arrangement of it; points on which

the ancients laid great stress, and I now think very rightly. I find constantly the great use of my many foreign journeys, for though I have no good maps here, yet I am getting on with Hannibal's march from personal recollections of the country, which I think will give an air of reality to the narrative greater than it ever could have from maps. Twelve o'clock strikes, and I must go to bed.

CCLIX. + TO REV. T. J. ORMEROD.

Fox How, January 3, 1841.

It is very delightful to be here, and our weather till to-day has been beautiful. I sit at the window with my books on the sofa around me, and my Epicurean wish would be to live here in quiet, writing and reading and rambling about on Loughrigg, more beautiful than Epicurus's garden. But my reasonable wishes turn to the work at Rugby, as a far better employment, so long as my health and strength are spared me.

Poor Southey's state is most pitiable, his mind is quite gone. There is something very touching in this end of so much mental activity, but there is no painful feeling of morbid restlessness in his former activity, he worked quietly though constantly, and his faculties seem gently to have sunk asleep, his body having outlived them, but in such a state of weakness as to give sign that it will soon follow them. Wordsworth is in body and mind still sound and vigorous; it is beautiful to see and hear him.

.

CCLX. TO W. W. HULL, ESQ.

Fox How, January 15, 1841.

I was unwell before the holidays, and,

although I soon recovered, yet I was very glad to come

down here and get some rest.

And the rest of this place

in winter is complete, every thing so quiet, with only our

immediate neighbours, all kind and neighbourly. Wordsworth is remarkably well, and we see him daily; and moreover, Rydal Lake is frozen as hard as a rock, and my nine children, and I with them, were all over it to-day, to our great delight. Four of my boys skait. Walter is trundled in his wheelbarrow, and my daughters and I slide, for I am afraid that I am too old to learn to skait now. My wife walks to Ambleside to get the letters, and then goes round to meet us as we come from the Lake. When I am here, it does make me sadly yearn for the time when I may live here steadily, if I am alive at all. Yet I do not suppose that I should ever be able to get an income to retire upon, equal to what yours is; but, if my boys were once educated, I think I should come down here without more delay. As for poor little Walter, I do not think that I should ever be able to wait at Rugby for him, so I do not know what he will do. Your boys, however, are so much older than he is, that your difficulty would be over much before mine; and depend upon it that the comfort of an income already secured is great, when a man feels at all unwell . . . but all this is in wiser and better hands than ours, and our care has enough to think of in those nearer concerns which may not be neglected without worse fault than imprudence, and worse mischief than a narrow income.

CCLXI. TO REV. J. HEARN.

Fox How, January 25, 1841.

I had hoped to write to you at any rate before we left Fox How, and now your kind and long letter gives you a stronger claim on me. You have also been so kind as to wish my wife and myself to be sponsors for your little boy; and we can have only one scruple in becoming so, lest we should stand in the way of other friends of yours, and particularly of Mrs. Hearn's, who may be better known to your children than we can expect to be in the.

common course of things, as our life, in all human probability, will be passed between Warwickshire and Westmoreland. Otherwise we should accept with great pleasure so sure a mark of your confidence and friendship.

We have been here almost six weeks, in perfect rest as far as this place is concerned, but I have had a very troublesome correspondence about school matters, which has brought Rugby more before my mind than I wish to have it in the holidays. I hope that this is not indolence, but I feel it very desirable, if I can, to get my mind thoroughly refreshed and diverted during the vacations;-" diverted,” I mean in the etymological rather than in the popular sense, that is, turned aside from its habitual objects of interest to others which refresh from their very variety. Thus my History is a great diversion from the cares about the school, and then the school work in its turn is a diversion from the thoughts about the History. Otherwise either would be rather overpowering, for the History, though very interesting, is a considerable engrosser of one's thoughts; there is so much difficulty in the composition of it, as well as in the investigation of the facts. I have just finished Cannæ, and do not expect to do much more these holidays.

We hope to be at Laleham on Saturday, and to stay there till Wednesday; thence we go to Oxford, and finally return to Rugby on Friday, February 5. There are other subjects which will require a good deal of attention, just coming upon me. I am appointed, with Dr. Peacock, Dean of Ely, to draw up a Charter for the proposed College in Van Diemen's Land, which will again force me upon the question of religious instruction without exclusion, one of the hardest of all problems. In all British colonies, it is manifest that the Scotch Church has exactly equal rights with the English,-equal rights even legally -and I think, considering Ireland, that the Roman Church has equal rights morally. Yet to instruct independently of any Church, is utterly monstrous, and to