My dear Bailey--When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice to the surface ere he makes his final sink--if however even at the third rise he can manage to catch hold of a piece of weed or rock he stands a fair chance, as I hope I do now, of being saved. I have sunk twice in our correspondence, have risen twice, and have been too idle, or something worse, to extricate myself. I have sunk the third time, and just now risen again at this two of the Clock P.M., and saved myself from utter perdition by beginning this, all drenched as I am, and fresh from the water. And I would rather endure the present inconvenience of a wet jacket than you should keep a laced one in store for me. Why did I not stop at Oxford in my way? How can you ask such a Question? Why, did I not promise to do so? Did I not in a letter to you make a promise to do so? Then how can you be so unreasonable as to ask me why I did not? This is the thing--(for I have been rubbing up my Invention--trying several sleights--I first polished a cold, felt it in my fingers, tried it on the table, but could not pocket it:--I tried Chillblains, Rheumatism, Gout, tight boots,--nothing of that sort would do,--so this is, as I was going to say, the thing)--I had a letter from Tom, saying how much better he had got, and thinking he had better stop--I went down to prevent his coming up. Will not this do? turn it which way you like--it is selvaged all round. I have used it, these three last days, to keep out the abominable Devonshire weather--by the by, you may say what you will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy, rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, haily, floody, muddy, slipshod county. The hills are very beautiful, when you get a sight of 'em--the primroses are out, but then you are in--the Cliffs are of a fine deep colour, but then the Clouds are continually vieing with them--the Women like your London people in a sort of negative way--because the native men are the poorest creatures in England--because Government never have thought it worth while to send a recruiting party among them. When I think of Wordsworth's sonnet "Vanguard of Liberty! ye men of Kent!" the degenerated race about me are Pulvis ipecac. simplex--a strong dose. Were I a corsair, I'd make a descent on the south coast of Devon; if I did not run the chance of having Cowardice imputed to me. As for the men, they'd run away into the Methodist meeting-houses, and the women would be glad of it. Had England been a large Devonshire, we should not have won the Battle of Waterloo. There are knotted oaks--there are lusty rivulets? there are meadows such as are not--there are valleys of feminine[51] climate--but there are no thews and sinews--Moore's Almanack is here a Curiosity--Arms, neck, and shoulders may at least be seen there, and the ladies read it as some out-of-the-way Romance. Such a quelling Power have these thoughts over me that I fancy the very air of a deteriorating quality. I fancy the flowers,