_29th._ Sir Humphry this morning finished his "Vision," which, he tells me, is really founded on a dream that he had some years ago, in which he found himself borne through the firmament from planet to planet. Of this dream, which he introduces as the consequence of a highly interesting and animated conversation that he holds with two friends in the Colosæum at Rome, on the grandeur and decay of nations, and the mutability of religions, the general outline, he says, has alone remained in his mind; but it has been his pleasure and delight during his mornings at Ischl, and when he was not engaged in his favourite pursuit of fishing, to work upon this foundation, and to build up a tale, alike redundant with highly beautiful imagery, fine thoughts, and philosophical ideas; and the hours thus passed with Sir Humphry have afforded me high mental gratification and advantage, for I have then marked his mind wandering, as it were, with the associates of his early days; those days, in which he was evidently, by the exercise of his extraordinary powers and quick perception, exciting not only his own mind to dive into, and to unfold to clearer view, the mysteries of creation, but that too of other congenial spirits; thus most naturally collecting around him a constellation of shining lights, the remembrance of whom often awakens vivid thoughts of the past, and rouses his whole soul to action. In the afternoon I read to him "Salmonia," in which he immediately began to make corrections and additions in preparation for a second edition.