A short while ago we were reading the xith Chapter of Guy Mannering, where Colonel Mannering returns to Ellangowan after seventeen years. A long gap in a Story, Scott says: but scarcely so in Life, to any one who looks back so far. And, at the end of the Novel, we found a pencil note of mine, 'Finished 10.30 p.m. Tuesday Decr. 17/1861.' Not on this account, but on account of its excellence, pray do read the Chapter if you can get the Book: it is altogether admirable--Cervantes--Shakespeare. I mean that Chapter of the Colonel's return to Mrs. MacCandlish's Inn at Kippletringan. We are now reading 'Among the Spanish People,' by the Mr. Rose who wrote 'Untrodden Spain'; a really honest, good-hearted, fellow, I think: with some sentimentality amid his Manhood, and (I suppose) rather too rose- coloured in his Estimate of the People he has long lived among. But he can't help recalling Don Quixote. He has a really delightful account of a Visit he pays to a _pueblo_ he calls Banos up the Sierra Morena: one would expect Don and Sancho there, by one of the old Houses with Arms over the Door. Pray get hold of this Book also if you can: else 'les Hacquevilles' will have to buy it second hand from Mudie and send--'Coals to Newcastle.' With Keats I shall send you an Athenaeum with a rather humorous account of a Cockney squabble about whether Shelley called his Lark an '_un_-bodied,' or '_em_-bodied,' Spirit. I really forget which way was settled by MS. Shelley is now the rage in Cockayne; but he is too unsubstantial for me. It is now hot here: I suppose something [like] February in Andalusia. Do you find Madrid Climate as bad as Rose and others describe it? He has also a very pleasant [chapter] about the Lavanderas of the Manzanares. What delightful words! _To W. A. Wright_. [1878.] On looking into my dear old Montaigne, I find a passage which may have rustled in Shakespeare's head while doing Othello: it is about the pleasures of Military Life in the Chapter 'De l'Experience' beginning 'Il n'est occupation plaisante comme la militaire, etc.' in course of which occurs in Florio, 'The courageous _minde-stirring_ harmonic of warlike music, etc.' What a funny thing is that closing Apostrophe to Artillery--but this is not AEsthetic. Bacon's appropriation you know of C'est bien choisir de ne choisir pas' (De la Vanite, I _think_). WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 11, [1878] MY DEAR WRIGHT,