rst reading: for he will never be
dry, apply as often as I may. My sisters are reading to me Lyell's
Geology of an Evening: there is an admirable chapter illustrative of
human error and prejudice retarding the truth, which will apply to all
sciences, I believe: and, if people would consider it, would be more
valuable than the geological knowledge, though that is very valuable, I
am sure. You see my reading is so small that I can soon enumerate all my
books: and here you have them. . . .

[BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE,
21 _April_, 1837.]

DEAR ALLEN,

Have you done with my Doctor? If you have, will you send him to me here:
Boulge Hall, Woodbridge, per Shannon Coach? You may book it at the Boar
and Castle, Oxford Street, close by Hanway Passage. This is not far out
of your beat. Perhaps I should not have sent for this book (it is
Bernard Barton the Quaker who asks to read it) but that it gives me an
excuse also to talk a little to you. Ah! I wish you were here to walk
with me now that the warm weather is come at last. Things have been
delayed but to be more welcome, and to burst forth twice as thick and
beautiful. This is boasting however, and counting of the chickens before
they are hatched: the East winds may again plunge us back into winter:
but the sunshine of this morning fills one's pores with jollity, as if
one had taken laughing gas. Then my house is getting on: the books are
up in the bookshelves and do my heart good: then Stothard's Canterbury
Pilgrims are over the fireplace: Shakespeare in a recess: how I wish you
were here for a day or two! My sister is very well and cheerful and we
have kept house very pleasantly together. My brother John's wife is, I
fear, declining very fast: it is very probable that I shall have to go
and see her before long: though this is a visit I should gladly be
spared. They say that her mind is in a very beautiful state of
peacefulness. She _may_ rally in the summer: but the odds are much
against her. We shall lose a perfect Lady, in the complete sense of the
word, when she dies.

I have been doing very little since I have been here: having accomplished
only a few Idylls of Theocritus, which harmonize with this opening of the
fine weather. Is all this poor occupation for a man who has a soul to
account for? You think so certainly. My dear Allen, you, with your
accustomed humility, asked me if I did not think you changed when I was
last in London: never did I see man