you. We are come to
settle at this place: and I have been enjoying capital health in my old
native air. I meant to have come to London for the winter: but my
sisters are here, and I do not like to leave them. This parish is a very
small one: it scarce contains fifty people: but that next to it,
Bredfield, has more than four hundred: and some very poor indeed. We
hope to be of some use: but the new Poor Laws have begun to be set afoot,
and we don't know who is to stop in his cottage, or who is to go to the
Workhouse. How much depends upon the issue of this measure! I am no
politician: but I fear that no political measure will ever adjust matters
well between rich and poor. . . .

I have just read Southey's Life of Cowper; that is to say, the first
Volume. It is not a book to be read by every man at the fall of the
leaf. It is a fearful book. Have you read it? Southey hits hard at
Newton in the dark; which will give offence to many people: but I
perfectly agree with him. At the same time, I think that Newton was a
man of great power. Did you ever read his life by himself? Pray do, if
you have not. His journal to his wife, written at sea, contains some of
the most beautiful things I ever read: fine feeling in very fine English.
. . .

Pray do write to me: a few lines soon are better than a three-decker a
month hence: for I really want to know where and how you are: and so be a
good boy for once in your life. Ever yours lovingly,

E. F. G.

_To W. B. Donne_.

LONDON, _March_ [21], 1836.

DEAR DONNE,

. . . As to the sponsorship, I was sure that you and Mrs. Donne would
receive my apology as I meant it. Indeed I wish with you that people
would speak their minds more sincerely than it is the custom to do; and
recoin some of the every day compliments into a simpler form: but this is
voted a stale subject, I believe. Anyhow, I will not preach to you who
do not err: not to mention that I cannot by any means set up myself as
any model of this virtue: whatever you may say to the contrary.

I have consulted my friend John Allen concerning your ancestor's sermons:
he says that the book is scarce. . . . I think that you should be
possessed of him by all means, considering that you are his descendant.
Allen read much of him at the Museum, and has always spoken very highly
of him. As to doctrine, I believe Jeremy Taylor has never been quite
blameless; but then he wrote many folios instead of Donne's one: a