pleasure; and on the other, that conventional adoption of trifles incapable of amusing in any community, except a paradise of fools, with which we are in the habit of performing the _mechanism_ of society, fatiguing our friends, and doing penance ourselves? Stanhope is a very fine young man, full of fire and enterprize, yet gentle and rational. He has a great deal of taste, and is very fond of the classics. We are going presently, armed with a pocket Horace, to visit Soracte, accompanied by Oliphant, who is exactly the sort of man to whose care Mr. Otway may fearlessly confide his charge. He has very good manners, plain, and unassuming, and possesses that fortunate mixture of sobriety and cheerfulness, which peculiarity befits the character of a tutor, securing at once the double tribute of respect and affection. How I long for your next letter, which will tell me of your expedition to Killarney, and, oh that I could transport myself into the midst of you! Before I close my letter, I must express the joy of a _true_ friend, at finding that you are so happy with your relations. Dear Arthur, I _knew_ that your mind would undergo a revolution. It is only in _progress_ at present, but I anticipate more decision in all your views of people and things. You have too much sense, and your feelings are too fine, to admit of your being hood-winked. You must not drop into the crowd and suffer yourself to be borne upon its tide, without the slightest sympathy in the folly, and, shall I add, the _vulgarity_ that surround you. Yes, do not start, and suppose that I have lost my senses. I repeat the word; there is infinite _vulgarity_ in mere fashion. Something very poor and mean, in never daring to think for oneself, and in sacrificing every inclination and faculty to the tyranny of arbitrary control; but you will speedily rise into the consequence of a rational creature. You will take your station amongst intellectual beings, and, giving reins to the _real_ bent of your character, find that fulness of mind, which absolutely excludes _ennui_. I cannot express how much I am interested by the conversations which you have given me. A volume of description would not have conveyed a _tithe_ of what you have imparted in the way of information, by bringing me thus into the midst of the circle. I see the whole mental _map_ before me, and though it would be unreasonable to think that you can have time for such details in future, I cannot set you entirely free; but would fain hope that, coupled with the "incidents" which are all that you _promise_, henceforward I may still find a few of those graphic touches which make me present in that unrivalled group with whom your good fortune has _bound you up_.