kimming: and then drunk by those who can and will. It
is to be tried first on my old woman: if she survives, I am to begin: and
it will then gradually spread into the Parish, through England, Europe,
etc., 'as the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake.' Good people here
are much scandalized at Thirlwall's being made a Bishop: Isabella {73a}
brought home a report from a clergyman that Thirlwall had so bad a
character at Trinity that many would not associate with him. I do not
think however that I would have made him Bishop: I am all for good and
not great Bishops. Old Evans {73b} would have done better. I am become
an Oxford High Church Divine after Newman: whose sermons are the best
that ever were written in my judgment. Cecil I have read: and liked for
his good sense. Is the croft at Tenby still green: and does Mary Allen
take a turn on it in a riding habit as of old? And I remember a ravine
on the horn of the bay opposite the town where the sea rushes up. I mean
as you go on past the croft. I can walk there as in a dream. I see
Thackeray's book {73c} announced as about to be published, and I hear
Spedding has written a Review of Carlyle's Revolution in the Edinburgh. I
don't know a book more certain to evaporate away from posterity than
that, except it be supported by his other works. Parts may perhaps be
found two hundred years hence and translated into Erse by some inverted
Macpherson. 'These things seem strange,' says Herodotus, {73d} [Greek
text]. Herodotus makes few general assertions: so when he does make
them, they tell. I could talk more to you, but my paper is out. John
Allen, I rejoice in you.

_To Bernard Barton_.

BEDFORD, _Aug_. 31/40.

DEAR SIR,

I duly received your letter. I am just returned from staying three days
at a delightful Inn by the river Ouse, where we always go to fish. I
dare say I have told you about it before. The Inn is the cleanest, the
sweetest, the civillest, the quietest, the liveliest, and the cheapest
that ever was built or conducted. Its name, the Falcon of Bletsoe. On
one side it has a garden, then the meadows through which winds the Ouse:
on the other, the public road, with its coaches hurrying on to London,
its market people halting to drink, its farmers, horsemen, and foot
travellers. So, as one's humour is, one can have whichever phase of life
one pleases: quietude or bustle; solitude or the busy hum of men: one can
sit in the principal room with a t