I have made an experiment in living here not unimportant. I drink no wine or beer, only a pint or one-third of a bottle of cider at dinner. I care not what I eat, I have only one maid and no helps, and could thus live for a trifle in a cottage. In such times such trials may have their use beyond the Christian propriety of self-denial; but my collection of good books are a great comfort, which, if deprived of, I should miss terribly. I rise at 4 A.M., walk up to my neck in the garden pond, pray, and then read till breakfast; read, walk, and farm till dinner, and so on till it is dark, and no moment hangs heavily on my hands. I reproach myself with indolence for not going among the cottagers, but they come to me numerously, and having descriptive lists I know enough to do more than I am able, but I ought to go to their houses and examine their state well. I have been reading Watson’s Collection,[202] and am forming a table of striking passages, and think to have them copied for arranging with the many I have already written, and may print it some time or other under some such title as this: _A course of reading on the origin, truth, and doctrines of the Christian Religion_. I know of no book of evidences that includes all; by taking the most impressive passages on each subject from many books, and disposing them in a lucid form, I think I could produce a very useful work without presuming to compose any part of it myself. May the Lord afford me His Spirit should I go on with the design, but with my employment it would be a business requiring much time! _9th._—Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Balgrave. Balgrave is a good-tempered Suffolk parson, neglects the duty of his church, idle, indolent, drinks his bottle of port and reads his newspaper, but what is called a respectable character, no vices, nor any imprudent follies. _10th._—Symonds dined with me and took a bed. The Duke of Brunswick marching into Hanover will, he says, be a keen revenge. When he married our King’s sister, Lord Bute (who told the whole to S. while travelling with him in Italy) promised him the government of Hanover as soon as it should be vacant, with the King’s knowledge. The Marquis of Granby conveyed the assurance. When the vacancy happened the Prince of Mecklenburg was talked of. Lord Granby wrote to Lord Bute to remonstrate, who went to the King and Queen, and urged the real necessity of adhering to the promise. All in vain, the Queen prevailed, and her brother, not two degrees better than ——, was appointed. The Duke of Brunswick never forgave it, and when invited to England rejected the idea with anger. Symonds saw him at Venice and noted the asperity of some of his expressions.