"Harborough is a monstrously stupid place, possessing no interest that I have yet discovered either in the form of situation or antiquities. The inhabitants of the county are principally graziers and fox-hunters, men of substance, coarse in their manners, and tolerably hospitable. Of the few clergymen I have yet seen, little can be said in praise. One has been suspended for his profligate habits; another drinks so hard that he is incapable of performing the duties of his church, being frequently insane; and a third attended yesterday at our board with his church-warden, both of whom were so fuddled that they could with difficulty make themselves understood. . . . We have a vast deal of business to transact, and every prospect of our work increasing. The labour is not so much occasioned by the extent or intricacy of the charities, as by the provoking stolidity of those who ought to be fully informed upon the subject. There exists in this part of the county a very extraordinary charity founded by a clergyman named Hanbury, who prepared seventeen deeds for the foundation of various branches of one grand charity. The property settled is directed to accumulate until the proceeds amount to £10,000 per annum (they are at present about £500), when a cathedral is to be erected at a cost of £150,000, and professorships of music, poetry, philosophy, botany, &c. &c., established. One of his deeds he heads, 'Beef for ever,' another, 'Organs for ever,' a third, 'Schools for ever,' with much of the same oddity. He has published a thick octavo volume with an account of his charity and a copy of his foundation deeds. The latter occupy 248 pages of the work, so if I have to abstract the whole of them it is impossible to say when my labours will end." "LEICESTER, _Feb. 5, 1837_.