o
consider what I shall do upon important occasions, I must presume myself
rector of Foston for life."

JOHN MURRAY [of Edinburgh], 12_th July_ 1813.--"My situation is as
follows:--I am engaged in agriculture without the slightest knowledge of
the art; I am building a house without an architect, and educating a son
without patience. . . . My new mansion springs up apace, and then I
shall really have a pretty place to receive you in, and a pleasant
country to show you."

LADY HOLLAND, 17_th Sept._ 1813.--"Few events are of so little
consequence as the fecundity of a clergyman's wife; still your kind
dispositions justify me in letting you know that Mrs Sydney and her
new-born son are both extremely well."

JOHN ALLEN, 13_th Jan._ 1814.--Of Lord Holland, Sydney writes:--"I wish
he would leave off wine entirely, after the manner of the Sharpe and
Rogers school. He is never guilty of excess; but there is a certain
respectable and dangerous plenitude, not quite conducive to that state of
health which all his friends most wish to Lord Holland."

JEFFREY, _Mar._ 1814.--"Pray remember me, dear Jeffrey, and say a good
word for me if I die first. I shall say many for you in the contrary
event."

LADY HOLLAND, 25_th June_ 1814.--"I liked London better than ever I liked
it before, and simply, I believe, from water-drinking. Without this,
London is stupefaction and inflammation. It is not the love of wine, but
thoughtlessness and unconscious imitation."

JEFFREY, 1814.--"I like my new house very much; . . . but the expense of
it will keep me a very poor man, a close prisoner here for my life, and
render the education of my children a difficult exertion for me. My
situation is one of great solitude, but I preserve myself in a state of
cheerfulness and tolerable content, and have a propensity to amuse myself
with trifles."

F. HORNER, 1816.--Referring to Dugald Stewart's _Preliminary
Dissertations_, Sydney says:--"I was amazingly pleased with his
comparison of the Universities to enormous hulks confined with
mooring-chains, everything flowing and progressing around them. Nothing
can be more happy."

LADY HOLLAND, 31_st July_ 1817.--"It is very curious to consider in what
manner Horner gained, in so extraordinary a degree, the affections of
such a number of persons of both sexes--all ages, parties, and ranks in
society; for he was not remarkably good-tempered nor particularly lively
and agreeable; and an inflexible pol