I have only Today got your Letter: have been walking out by myself in the Seckford Almshouse Garden till 9 p.m. in a sharp Frost--with Orion stalking over the South before me--(do you know him in India? I forget) have come in--drunk a glass of Porter; and am minded to answer you before I get to Bed. Perhaps the Porter will leave me stranded, however, before I get to the End of my Letter. Before this reaches you--probably before I write it--you will have heard of Thackeray's sudden Death. It was told me as I was walking alone in those same Seckford Gardens on Christmas-day Night; by a Corn-merchant--one George Manby--(do you remember him?) who came on purpose to tell me--and to wish me in other respects a Happy Christmas. I have thought little else than of W. M. T. ever since--what with reading over his Books, and the few Letters I had kept of his; and thinking over our five and thirty years' Acquaintance as I sit alone by my Fire these long Nights. I had seen very little of him for these last ten years; _nothing_ for the last five; he did not care to write; and people told me he was become a little spoiled: by London praise, and some consequent Egotism. But he was a very fine Fellow. His Books are wonderful: Pendennis; Vanity Fair; and the Newcomes; to which compared Fielding's seems to me coarse work. I don't know yet how his two daughters are left provided for; the Papers say well. He had built and furnished a fine House at 7 or 8000 pounds cost; which is as good a Property for them to let or sell as any other, I suppose; and the Copyright of his Books must also be a good Property: always supposing he had not encumbered all these by anticipation. I was not at all well myself for three months; but either the Doctor's Stuff, or the sharp clear weather, or both, have set me up pretty much as I was before. I have nothing to tell, as usual, of People or Places; for I have scarce stirred from this Place since my little Ship was laid up in the middle of October. Donne writes sometimes; I see an article of his about the Antonines advertised in the present Edinburgh; but that you know is out of my Line. His second son, Mowbray, is lately married to a Daughter (I don't know which) of Mrs. Salmon's; widow of a former Rector here, whom your Elizabeth will remember all about, I dare say. This time ten years I was lodging at Oxford, reading Persian with you. I doubt I shall never do so again; I am too lazy to turn Dictionaries over now; and indeed had some while ceased to expect much to turn up from them. You are quite right, as a Scholar, to work out the Mine; but you admit that nothing is likely to come out of such Value as from the Greek, Latin, and English, which we have ready to our hands. Did I tell you how pleased I had been with Sophocles and AEschylus in my Boat this Summer?