a time, heroic though remote, and characters which
ought to have a household interest to Englishmen, than the succinct
accounts of the mere historian could possibly afford him.

Thus, my dear D'Eyncourt, under cover of an address to yourself, have I
made to the Public those explanations which authors in general (and I not
the least so) are often overanxious to render.

This task done, my thoughts naturally fly back to the associations I
connected with your name when I placed it at the head of this epistle.
Again I seem to find myself under your friendly roof; again to greet my
provident host entering that gothic chamber in which I had been permitted
to establish my unsocial study, heralding the advent of majestic folios,
and heaping libraries round the unworthy work. Again, pausing from my
labour, I look through that castle casement, and beyond that feudal moat,
over the broad landscapes which, if I err not, took their name from the
proud brother of the Conqueror himself; or when, in those winter nights,
the grim old tapestry waved in the dim recesses, I hear again the Saxon
thegn winding his horn at the turret door, and demanding admittance to
the halls from which the prelate of Bayeux had so unrighteously expelled
him [5]--what marvel, that I lived in the times of which I wrote, Saxon
with the Saxon, Norman with the Norman--that I entered into no gossip
less venerable than that current at the Court of the Confessor, or
startled my fellow-guests (when I deigned to meet them) with the last
news which Harold's spies had brought over from the Camp at St. Valery?
With all those folios, giants of the gone world, rising around me daily,
more and more, higher and higher--Ossa upon Pelion--on chair and table,
hearth and floor; invasive as Normans, indomitable as Saxons, and tall as
the tallest Danes (ruthless host, I behold them still!)--with all those
disburied spectres rampant in the chamber, all the armour rusting in thy
galleries, all those mutilated statues of early English kings (including
St. Edward himself)--niched into thy grey, ivied walls--say in thy
conscience, O host, (if indeed that conscience be not wholly callous!)
shall I ever return to the nineteenth century again?

But far beyond these recent associations of a single winter (for which
heaven assoil thee!) goes the memory of a friendship of many winters, and
proof to the storms of all. Often have I come for advice to your wisdom,
and sympathy to your heart