old grey dressing-gown and red slippers, much to the surprise and something to the discomposure of his Diocesan. Nobody would believe Capel when he told them that the Bishop was going to be his guest. 'The Bishop of London!' said Clarendon to him, when he told him, 'how on earth did you contrive to get the Bishop of London to come to your house?' 'How,' said the other, 'why I gave him a good licking and that made him civil. We are very good friends now.' The only pity is, that having the quality of generosity and forgiveness of wrongs--for successful resistance is the same as a wrong--those virtues did not find a more estimable subject for their exercise. [Footnote 45: [The seat of the Earl of Verulam in Hertfordshire, formerly the residence of Lord Bacon.]] [Footnote 46: [Lord Hertford's will was disputed and the litigation occasioned some scandalous disclosures of his past life.]] [Sidenote: BISHOP BLOMFIELD AND WILLIAM CAPEL.] _October 23rd._--To the Grove on Thursday; came back yesterday to dine with Mr. Grenville; passed the whole morning of Saturday at the British Museum, where I had not been for many years, but where I propose to go henceforward very often. The number of readers is now on an average three hundred a day; in the time of Gray, as may be seen by his letters, it was not half a dozen. I had never dined with Mr. Grenville before, though he has more than once asked me, and I was glad to go there. He is a man whom I have always looked at with respect and pleasure. It is a goodly sight, to see him thus placidly and slowly going down the hill of life, with all his faculties of mind and body, not unimpaired, but still fresh and strong. One would rejoice to procure a new lease for such a man. He may well look round him, as he sits in his unrivalled library and surrounded by his friends, serene and full of enjoyment, and say, like Mazarin, 'Et il faut quitter tout cela!' but no reflexions or anticipations seem to overcast the mild sunshine of his existence. I certainly never saw so graceful and enviable an old age; and though he is eighty-six, and I am forty-eight, I would willingly change lives with him. I would much rather be approaching the end of life as he is approaching it, than live any number of years that I may yet chance to have in store as I am likely to live them. Mr. Grenville is rather deaf, and he complains of loss of memory, but he hears well enough for social purposes, and he is full of recollections of former times and remarkable people. He only laments his own infirmities on account of the trouble or inconvenience they may cause to others; not that he does not hear all that is said, but he pities those who are obliged to exert their voices to make him hear. No old man was ever less selfish and querulous. He told a story of Porson, which I will put in his own words: 'When I was a young man, which is now about seventy years ago, I used to live with Cracherode and other literary men of that