From the tone of your letter it appears to me that you are likely to take root in the soil in which you now grow. I am sorry that you did not return to England, as you gave me every reason to expect you would, last year. Your house at Brompton is an inadequate pledge of your future residence here, as experience has confirmed me in believing. In the meantime the Institution has irrevocably fallen into the hands of the enemy, and is now perverted to a hundred uses for which you and I never intended it. I could have successfully resisted their innovations had you been here, but, alone, unsupported, and this year confined to my house for three months by disease (gout), my spirit was too much broken to admit of my engaging singly with the host of H.’s and B.’s[26] who had possession of the fortress. Adieu, then, Institution! I have long ago declared my intention of attending no more. You desire that Davy may have your papers for insertion in the Journals. Alas! the Journals have ceased for more than a year, and the printing office is removed from the house of the Institution. Your papers, however, shall be communicated to him, as they have already been to Sir Charles Blagden. During this year a series of lectures was begun at the Institution by the Rev. Sydney Smith, which for fashionable attraction surpassed any courses that have ever been delivered there. Mr. Horner thus wrote to Mr. J. A. Murray: The Temple, November 15, 1804.