‘… My father has found the Εἰκὼν [βασιλική] among some old books, and I have been reading it. It puts me in mind of a verse in this morning’s Psalms: “Thou shalt hide me privily by Thine own presence from the provoking of all men, Thou shalt keep me secretly in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues”; which seems to point out the clearest and most beautiful instance of the moral government of God being begun on earth. I should like to know the Hebrew of the verse before: “O how plentiful is Thy goodness, which Thou hast prepared for them that trust in Thee _even before the sons of men_.” For if “before” means “in the presence of,” then David is drawing the conclusion I want; but I am afraid it must mean “greater than falls to the lot of the rest of mankind.” … Please to look, when you are in a humour for it, in _Medea_, 705, where Ægeus says, εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ δὴ φροῦδος εἰμὶ πᾶς ἐγώ. The commentators cited by Elmsley have fumbled much about it, and some of them I do not understand; but may it not mean: “For as to my name continuing in my posterity, in that respect I am clean gone.” If εἰς τοῦτο will bear this signification, it is certainly prettier than as it is commonly explained. I like _Hecuba_ far better than _Medea_…. Another interval has elapsed, and the leaves, which had held out surprisingly hitherto, have almost totally disappeared, and now we may reckon winter to be fairly set in. I wish I could write verses to perform the obsequies of this delicious summer, the like of which will probably never visit the abodes of mortals again….’ The little implied joke, celibate and Greek, on his own name, is not the least adornment of this charming letter. At the outset of 1826, Hurrell found at least one modern book to his liking. This was the _Fragments in Verse and Prose, by a Young Lady, Miss Elizabeth S――――, with Some Account of her Life and Character_, by H[enrietta] M[aria] Bowdler, a new edition of which, in two volumes octavo, had just appeared. Elizabeth Smith of Burnhall near Durham, the Oriental scholar, was born in 1776 and died in 1806. Our present standard reference, the _Dictionary of National Biography_, which highly commends her self-won learning and its methods, adds that ‘her verses have no merit, and her reflections are of the obvious kind, gracefully expressed.’ But the reflections do not seem obvious to some readers, save inasmuch as at first all simple and profound little discoveries of the sort seem so: which is ever their highest praise. The book is but poorly representative, and badly put together: it certainly would give no clear idea, to our own more exacting public, of a personality full of goodness and charm, nor of a remarkable mind with a dozen hobbies, and not one affectation. To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Jan. 12, 1826.