Smith came: like his brother
James, but better looking: and said to be very agreeable. Do you [know]
that he gives a dreadful account of Mrs. Southey: that meek and Christian
poetess: he says, she's a devil in temper. He told my mother so: had you
heard of this? I don't believe it yet: one ought not so soon, ought one?

Goodbye.

_To W. B. Donne_.

MONDAY.

MY DEAR DONNE,

Thompson tells me you are writing a Roman History. But you have not been
asked to Lecture at the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution, as I have--'any
subject except controversial Divinity, and party Politics.' In the
meantime I have begun Livy: I have read one book, and can't help looking
at the four thick octavos that remain--

Oh beate Sesti,
Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. {97}

But it is very stately reading. As to old Niebuhr, it is mean to attack
old legends that can't defend themselves. And what does it signify in
the least if they are true or not? Whoever _actively_ believed that
Romulus was suckled by a wolf? But I have found in Horace a proper motto
for those lumbering Germans:

Quis Parthum paveat? quis gelidum Scythen?
Quis Germania quos horrida parturit
Foetus? {98}

_To Bernard Barton_.

[GELDESTONE, _Jan_. 1842.]

MY DEAR SIR,

You tell my Father you mean to write a Poem about my invisibility--and
somehow it seems strange to myself that I have been so long absent from
Woodbridge. It was a toss up (as boys say--and perhaps Gods) whether I
should go now:--the toss has decided I should not. On the contrary I am
going to see Donne at Mattishall: a visit, which having put off a
fortnight ago, I am now determined to pay. But if I do not see you
before I go to London, I shall assuredly be down again by the latter part
of February: when toasted cheese and ale shall again unite our souls. You
need not however expect that I can return to such familiar intercourse as
once (in former days) passed between us. New honours in society have
devolved upon me the necessity of a more dignified deportment. A letter
has been sent from the Secretary of the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution
asking me to Lecture--any subject but Party Politics or Controversial
Divinity. On my politely declining, another, a fuller, and a more
pressing, letter was sent urging me to comply with their demand: I
answered to the same effect, but with accelerated dignity. I am now
awaiting the third request in confi