senses) make good country gentlemen, and magistrates; and I am glad to secure one man of means and education in each parish of England: the people can always resort to Wesley, Bunyan, and Baxter, if they want stronger food than the old Liturgy, and the orthodox Discourse. I think you will not read what I have written: or be very bored with it. But it is written now. I am going to-day into the neighbourhood of Kimbolton: but shall be back here by the end of the week: and shall not leave Bedford till next Monday certainly. I may then go to Naseby for three days: but this depends. I would go and hunt up some of the Peterboro' churchmen for you; but that my enquiries would either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one. _To E. B. Cowell_. [1847] DEAR COWELL, . . . I am only got half way in the third book of Thucydides: but I go on with pleasure; with as much pleasure as I used to read a novel. I have also again taken up my Homer. That is a noble and affecting passage where Diomed and Glaucus, being about to fight, recognize each other as old family friends, exchange arms, and vow to avoid each other henceforth in the fray. (N.B. and this in the tenth year of the war!) After this comes, you know, the meeting of Hector and Andromache, which we read together; altogether a truly Epic canto indeed.