I was glad to hear of you from Bremhill,

& to find that there is a fair prospect of seeing Bowles among the mountains, which his letter as well as yours leads me to expect. There is little likelihood of our meeting, till it be here, on the old ground. I have too much employment at this desk, to quit it for more than a day or two for a long while to come. I cannot say that this is any privation. Were it not for my Uncle – Mr Hill’s time of life, & the thoughts which that consideration must needs bring with it, a journey to London is one of the last things I should ever think of. The sort of life that one leads there agrees very well with my health, but very little with my inclinations.

Dickson, the steward of the Hospital

is very hard at work upon an alteration which will accommodate you more than any other person. He is making you a carriage road in the line of the present foot path thro the fields, & has cut away for you three feet of the hill, before you reach the lake. A great number of men are employed, & I believe the main object is to give them employment, which the Hospital for some time past, has very properly, been very liberal in doing. Lord William

has been here about four months & is likely to remain till the summer. He is so afraid of the weather, that he has never once been to Keswick; but he is chearful as ever when you find him by his fireside. Sir Frederick Morshead has brought home a wife,

after a summary courtship at Allanbay, – it is said they mean to make this place their residence. From his refusing an invitation to Calverts, upon the pretext of a cold, which the Ladies of his family smiled

when they mentioned, it seems that he is as little disposed to mix in society as ever. I have not called upon him. The other news of the place is that the Vicarage & the Royal Oak

have been rebuilt, – that my brothers family have the hooping cough, – (at a most unpleasant time when an addition to their number is almost daily expected) – & that Mr Edmondson is sadly altered in appearances by the frequent recurrence of a very dangerous disorder. He has been to Edinburgh to advice, & thinks himself better, not for the consultation, but for the journey.

There is at least this advantage in writing a letter for the newspapers,

that it is sure to reach all one’s friends. My temper is very happily suited to my condition; – it is just raised enough by such attacks to overcome the disinclination which I feel for any thing like controversy. Perhaps I should not have returned considered his Satanic Lordships note

as too blackguard for notice (there is really no other epithet which can characterise it so well) if it had b not been that so direct a charge of slander seemed to call for as direct a denial, & that it gave me an opportunity of repeating a castigation which he felt so severely, & deserved so well.

On my part, I am willing that the matter should rest. What I have written has been written fairly & openly, – public criticism had been silent in that quarter where it ought to have spoken loudest & with most authority, – & because of that silence, it became me more especially to speak, lest I should be implicated in the charge of either favouring or fearing the most atrocious writer of the age. In so doing I was sure of the approbation of all who had any regard for public decency or private moral, – & the enmity of the cut-throat part of the press was what I have long been used to. If it be necessary I will lay on the lash again; – but not if I can help it, – because my time may & ought to be more worthily employed; & the course which he is taking must have the effect of excluding his works from sight at least, & very much from general circulation. Now that he has unmasked himself, the tendency & purpose of those writings in which the poison was covertly administered will be seen, & resented accordingly [MS torn] all who look to the morals of their children.

I am far advanced in the press with the first volume of the Peninsular War.

My Book of the Church

also, so long promised, is now forthcoming. The first proof was corrected last week. My way is to be a long while preparing for a subject & maturing the plan, before I set seriously about executing it. I hope & believe that this book will be useful

My family thank God are going on well. Mrs S. better in health than she has been for many years. She with her sisters

& Edith-May unite in kindest remembrances to Mrs Peachy & yourself. Sara Coleridge is at Mr Wordsworths. Our little boy is at his most amusing age & thrives as we could wish him. He wanted to know why we let Christmas Day go away; – having been permitted to dine in the parlour on that festival he liked Christmas Day so well that he thought it should be continued throughout the whole year. <He is now looking in to a like indulgence on what calls his Bertha day.>