[Footnote: Another, slightly different, edition of this acrostic, with the answer to it from the Radical point of view, is given in Sir M. E. Grant Duff's _Notes from a Diary,_ 1873-81, vol. i. p. 126.] _From Lord Cairns_ _December 7th_--Putting aside the well-regulated party feeling which we ought all to endeavour to cultivate, the sensation of a period of repose after twenty-five years of hardish work is, to me, so novel and agreeable that I fear I do not look on my exit from office [Footnote: On the fall of Disraeli's ministry.] with the solicitude that I ought. But I do not the less appreciate the kind sentiments in your note, and I can safely say that upon the Judicial Committee, whether as Chancellor or as Lord Justice, it has been a very great pleasure to me to co-operate with anyone whose anxiety and efforts for the efficiency of the tribunal, and whose ability to contribute to that end, are as great as yours. I am most desirous that the two ecclesiastical judgements should be given before Christmas, as I may be absent for some weeks after that day. I hope to send you my draft in Mackonochie on Wednesday, and I will beg you to print and circulate it as soon as possible. I wish I could have done it sooner; but it is _magnum opus et difficile_, and I have had judgements in chancery and other work on hand, and in this I felt obliged to trust to no amanuensis. The following letter is from the widow of Sir James Smith, the botanist (_d_. 1828), and at this time in her ninety-sixth year. By her maiden name she was Pleasance Reeve, an old family friend, but not a relation of her namesake. Her letters are not less remarkable for the clearness and strength of the writing, than they are for the vigour of the thought and the lucidity of the expression. Five years later, just as she had completed her one hundredth year, Reeve and his daughter paid her a visit at Lowestoft, which is recorded on a later page. [Footnote: See _post_, p. 215.]