k) as under these unsettled
circumstances could possibly be expected." Or again: "All well.
_Barnaby_ has reached his tenth page. I have just turned lazy, and have
passed into _Christabel_, and thence to _Wallenstein_." At last the
choice was made. "A house of great promise (and great premium),
'undeniable' situation, and excessive splendor, is in view. Mitton is
in treaty, and I am in ecstatic restlessness. Kate wants to know whether
you have any books to send her, so please to shoot here any literary
rubbish on hand." To these I will only add a couple of extracts from his
letters while in Exeter arranging his father's and mother's new home.
They are very humorous; and the vividness with which everything, once
seen, was photographed in his mind and memory, is pleasantly shown in
them.

"I took a little house for them this morning" (5th March, 1839: from
the New London Inn), "and if they are not pleased with it I shall be
grievously disappointed. Exactly a mile beyond the city on the Plymouth
road there are two white cottages: one is theirs and the other belongs
to their landlady. I almost forget the number of rooms, but there is
an excellent parlor with two other rooms on the ground floor, there is
really a beautiful little room over the parlor which I am furnishing
as a drawing-room, and there is a splendid garden. The paint and paper
throughout is new and fresh and cheerful-looking, the place is clean
beyond all description, and the neighborhood I suppose the most
beautiful in this most beautiful of English counties. Of the landlady,
a Devonshire widow with whom I had the honor of taking lunch
to-day, I must make most especial mention. She is a fat, infirm,
splendidly-fresh-faced country dame, rising sixty and recovering from an
attack 'on the nerves'--I thought they never went off the stones, but I
find they try country air with the best of us. In the event of my
mother's being ill at any time, I really think the vicinity of this
good dame, the very picture of respectability and good humor, will be
the greatest possible comfort. _Her_ furniture and domestic arrangements
are a capital picture, but that I reserve till I see you, when I
anticipate a hearty laugh. She bears the highest character with the
bankers and the clergyman (who formerly lived in _my_ cottage himself),
and is a kind-hearted worthy capital specimen of the sort of life, or I
have no eye for the real and no idea of finding it out.

"This good lady'