But I shall not copy it out for fear of tiring you, and indeed I feel that I must hurry over the rest of his school life. When every line and word is full of life and interest to oneself, it is perhaps hard to judge where to stop for the next generation. A few short extracts, however, from his letters during his last three years will, I think, interest you. At least some of the references will show you what a time of revolution you were born into. When we were your ages there was no railway between London and Birmingham: and in all other directions, and on all other sides of English life, the change seems to me quite as great as in this of locomotion. “_April 1837._—They are getting on very fast with the railroad, and I hear that it is to be finished in August. I intend going to-morrow to Kilsby to see a very large tunnel that they are making for the railroad there. “There has been a row about fishing. Mr. Boughton Leigh’s keeper took away a rod from a fellow who was fishing in a part of the river that has always been given to the fellows to fish in, but which the keeper said was a preserve of Mr. Leigh’s. The fellows went in a body to Mr. Leigh’s house, but found he had gone to London; they are going to write a letter to him, asking the reason of taking the rod. The fellow who had his rod taken away has caught an immense quantity of pike, and this half he caught in one afternoon two, one 5 lbs., the other three.” ... “_June 1837._—I dare say you will be glad to hear that Stanley[4] has got the English verse; they say it is the best since Heber’s Palestine that has been written; some part of it was quoted in the ‘Standard.’ Vaughan[5] also has got the Porson’s Greek verse, and the Greek Ode and Epigrams.” ... “_September 1837._—There was a meeting at Rugby a little while ago, got up by some horrid Radicals, about paying Church rates, whether they should pay them or not: but there was a very large majority that they should pay them; although half the town are Dissenters, and another quarter Radicals.” ...