y marriage. I am living quietly
in the country, among my books, and looking forward with calmness,
rather than impatience, to the time which shall again bring me before
the world. Marriage with me is not that sepulchre of all human hope and
energy which it often is with others. I am not more partial to my arm
chair, nor more averse to shaving, than of yore. I do not bound my
prospects to the dinner-hour, nor my projects to "migrations from the
blue bed to the brown." Matrimony found me ambitious; it has not cured
me of the passion: but it has concentrated what was scattered, and
determined what was vague. If I am less anxious than formerly for the
reputation to be acquired in society, I am more eager for honour in the
world; and instead of amusing my enemies, and the saloon, I trust yet to
be useful to my friends and to mankind.

Whether this is a hope, altogether vain and idle; whether I have, in
the self-conceit common to all men, peculiarly prominent in myself,
overrated both the power and the integrity of my mind (for the one
is bootless without the other,) neither I nor the world can yet
tell. "Time," says one of the fathers, "is the only touchstone which
distinguishes the prophet from the boaster."

Meanwhile, gentle reader, during the two years which I purpose devoting
to solitude and study, I shall not be so occupied with my fields and
folios, as to render me uncourteous to thee. If ever thou hast known me
in the city, I give thee a hearty invitation to come and visit me in the
country. I promise thee, that my wines and viands shall not disgrace the
companion of Guloseton: nor my conversation be much duller than my book.
I will compliment thee on thy horses, thou shalt congratulate me upon my
wife. Over old wine we will talk over new events; and if we flag at the
latter, why, we will make ourselves amends with the former. In short, if
thou art neither very silly nor very wise, it shall be thine own fault
if we are not excellent friends.

I feel that it would be but poor courtesy in me, after having kept
company with Lord Vincent, through the tedious journey of three volumes,
to dismiss him now without one word of valediction. May he, in the
political course he has adopted, find all the admiration his talents
deserve; and if ever we meet as foes, let our heaviest weapon be a
quotation, and our bitterest vengeance a jest.

Lord Guloseton regularly corresponds with me, and his last letter
contained a promise to