Now, you need not answer this letter: as you have done remarkably well already. I am living (did I tell you this before?) at a little cottage close by the lawn gates, where I have my books, a barrel of beer which I tap myself (can you tap a barrel of beer?), and an old woman to do for me. I have also just concocted two gallons of Tar water under the directions of Bishop Berkeley: it is to be bottled off this very day after a careful skimming: and then drunk by those who can and will. It is to be tried first on my old woman: if she survives, I am to begin: and it will then gradually spread into the Parish, through England, Europe, etc., 'as the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake.' Good people here are much scandalized at Thirlwall's being made a Bishop: Isabella {73a} brought home a report from a clergyman that Thirlwall had so bad a character at Trinity that many would not associate with him. I do not think however that I would have made him Bishop: I am all for good and not great Bishops. Old Evans {73b} would have done better. I am become an Oxford High Church Divine after Newman: whose sermons are the best that ever were written in my judgment. Cecil I have read: and liked for his good sense. Is the croft at Tenby still green: and does Mary Allen take a turn on it in a riding habit as of old? And I remember a ravine on the horn of the bay opposite the town where the sea rushes up. I mean as you go on past the croft. I can walk there as in a dream. I see Thackeray's book {73c} announced as about to be published, and I hear Spedding has written a Review of Carlyle's Revolution in the Edinburgh. I don't know a book more certain to evaporate away from posterity than that, except it be supported by his other works. Parts may perhaps be found two hundred years hence and translated into Erse by some inverted Macpherson. 'These things seem strange,' says Herodotus, {73d} [Greek text]. Herodotus makes few general assertions: so when he does make them, they tell. I could talk more to you, but my paper is out. John Allen, I rejoice in you. _To Bernard Barton_. BEDFORD, _Aug_. 31/40. DEAR SIR,