A longer time than usual has elapsed without our seeing you, – & it is also very long since we have heard of each other, – except by such intelligence as is common to every body in the newspapers. There I have seen that you were in the post of honour at the meetings of the National Society,

– & you will have seen that I have been, as usual, assailed by the whole Satanic fraternity, & very well able to withstand them.

Some of my acquaintance think that I like to be the object of abuse, & would rather invite than shun it. The truth is that I care no more for it, than for the wind & rain when I am well-housed & have no occasion to leave the fire side. The tortoise is not safer against a hail storm, in his shell, than I am against obloquy in my way of life, & happy temper of mind.

We are going on, God be thanked, as you would wish to hear. The big twins

are shot up into young women, & the little girls

fast growing into great ones. Cuthberts birtha day, as he calls it, is on Sunday next: he will then be three years old, & it would not be easy to find a more promising child of that age, in any or all respects.

We have had no winter here, – only two or three slight frosts, never of two days continuance, – & the ground has not once been covered with snow. On the other hand x xxx we have had a succession of wind, like the equinoctial gales for violence, ever since August, with never more than an interval of two or three days. The glass has been at one time as low as it could fall, & we have had greater floods than the oldest person can remember or had ever heard of. A man was thrown from his horse by the National School, swept by the force of the flood over two hedges, & drownd there.

For myself, I like any weather better than sharp frost & nipping blasts. I have past the winter, as usual at my desk, – & perceive, like all persons who are going down the hill of life, that the weeks seem to pass more rapidly every year than they did the last.

You will not be sorry to hear that the Book of the Church

is in the press at last, & I am you will believe that it will not be the worse for having been so long delayed. My subjects are always long in ripening. The first volume of the History of the Peninsular War

is also very far advanced in the printing: – so that I shall take the field this season in great force.

Wordsworth has a series of Sonnets

coming forth, which corresponds as nicely with the Book of the Church, as if my work were designed for a running commentary upon his, or his for a poetical illustration of mine. I cannot but believe as well as hope that both will reach posterity, & be useful now & hereafter.