‘I can hardly shut up without telling you of such an interesting set of fellows that we heard of in our peregrinations. They were sixteen French fishermen and three boys, who had all come over, in one boat, to get bait on the English coast, and were kept there ten days by the wind: all that time they sat upon the deck knitting stockings and nightcaps; and, when Sunday came, they were just so far out at sea that the people on the coast could hear them singing the Roman Catholic service so beautifully, and in the evening they came on shore, and danced, out of mere jollity, for an hour. They were such grateful fellows, that a gentleman on the coast who had done them some kindness, could hardly get rid of them without his giving them some commission to do for him in France, _i.e._ to let them smuggle something over for him; and, when they could not remove his scruples as a Justice of [the] Peace, they caught him an immense fish, and were quite disappointed that he would not accept it as a present.’ The great mass of Keble’s letters to his pupil and friend have disappeared: but we have the answer promptly sent to this, and written with his own winning humility. ‘For your telling me exactly what you think about [the verses] I shall hold you in greater honour as long as I live.’ He goes on, sweetly and sagaciously, to explain that _The Christian Year_ but aimed at helping ‘the plain and good.’[32] It will be remembered that the archpriest of letters, Mr. William Wordsworth, once offered to go over _The Christian Year_, with a view to correcting the English. To that height Hurrell could not rise. To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Dec. 6, 1825. ‘“Sir, my dear friend,” you cannot tell how much I am obliged to you for your benevolence to my last letter, but that does not make me the less a fool for having expressed myself so; and what provokes me most of all is that I did not give myself fair play by not writing till my opinions had settled; for as far as my memory goes, I think they are now undergoing a revolution, and that if I were to see the pottery[33] in question again, I should think quite differently of it. There is something about them which leaves (to use the words of our friend Tom Moore) ‘“A sad remembrance fondly kept When all lighter thoughts are faded.”