In itself the sermon was good and glorious; and the day a rich day of pleasure; but I should really need to have more hours at my disposal than I can steal from May, in which I am at present living and writing; and more strength than wandering through this fine weather has left me for landscape pictures of the same, before I could attempt, with any well-founded hope, to draw out a mathematical estimate of the length and thickness, and the vibrations and accordant relations to each other, of the various strings, which combined together to form for his heart a Music of the Spheres, on this day of Trinity-term, though such a thing would please myself as much as another.... Do not ask me! In my opinion, when a man preaches on Sunday, before all the peasants, who had carried him in their arms when a gardener's boy; further, before his mother, who is leading off her tears through the conduit of her satin muff; further, before his Lordship, whom he can positively command to be blessed; and finally before his muslin bride, who is already blessed, and changing almost into stone, to find that the same lips can both kiss and preach; in my opinion, I say, when a man effects all this, he has some right to require of any Biographer who would paint his situation, that he--hold his jaw; and of the reader who would sympathize with it, that he open his, and preach himself.---- But what I must _ex officio_ depict, is the day to which this Sunday was but the prelude, the vigil, and the whet; I mean the prelude, the vigil, and the whet to the _Martini Actus_, or _Martinmas Exhibition_ of his school. On Sunday was the sermon, on Wednesday the Actus, on Tuesday the Rehearsal. This Tuesday shall now be delineated to the universe. I count upon it that I shall not be read by mere people of the world alone, to whom a School-Actus cannot truly appear much better, or more interesting, than some Investiture of a Bishop, or the _opera seria_ of Frankfort Coronation; but that I likewise have people before me, who have been at schools, and who know how the School-Drama of an Actus and the stage-manager, and the playbill (the programme) thereof are to be estimated, still without overrating their importance.