My dear Madame de Tocqueville,--One's own sorrows bring back with increased vivacity the sorrows of others and the melancholy recollections of other years, for at each successive blow a great gap is made in life, and one feels that another record of the past is closed. We have come to this place for a few days to regain a little health and spirits after the long and anxious year we have passed by my dear mother's sick bed. All our cares have unhappily been vain, and about ten days ago she breathed her last. I cannot express how great a loss this is to me, or how deeply I feel it. Your dear and ever-lamented husband was one of those who appreciated the exquisite simplicity and energy of my mother's character, and the words he let fall from time to time about her are very precious to me. To any one who now reads the book, [Footnote: See _ante_, vol. ii. p. 66.] and considers the later course of the lives of its authors, it is difficult to conceive the excitement which was raised about the case referred to in the next note from the Journal. The remembrance of it seems to throw a doubt on the reality or immutability of 'first principles.' _February 8th_.--Judgement was given by the Judicial Committee on the great ecclesiastical cause of 'Essays and Reviews.' It was drawn with great care by Lord Westbury, who read it all over with me before it was submitted to the committee. _From Lord Brougham_ _Cannes, February 13th_.--I received your melancholy letter [Footnote: Announcing the death of his mother.] some time ago, but I did not answer it because I felt that your excuse for not taking notice of Phillimore's attack was too good, and I had no comfort to offer you. I suffered most severely myself by the same loss, and I have not, after above twenty years, learnt to forget it. Your letter brought it back strongly to my mind, as it also did the memory of my excellent friend your father. I find my opinion, and those I cited in support of it, is confirmed by the articles in the journals--such as the 'Saturday Review' [Footnote: February 6th, 1864.]--which, though attacking Phillimore in some particulars, yet show that some answer to him, or explanation of matters which he represents, was wanted. But I dare say his attacks will be forgotten, and you may be right in doing nothing that can help to keep them in people's recollection. [Footnote: Reeve, who was always averse from any controversy of this nature, took no public notice of the pamphlet, and Phillimore died early the next year.] I have just got your new number and not read a page of it, as the 'Quarterly' came with it, and I was anxious to read the review of our friend your neighbour's book, [Footnote: _The Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero_.] which is learnedly and most justly praised, and the value of the praise not impaired, like that of the 'Saturday Review,' [Footnote: February 6th, 1864.] by praising Houghton's (Dick Milnes') poems in another article. The Journal has:--