In this age of reformation & improvement, a very needful improvement has been undertaken at Keswick, – to which I have been desired to solicit your contribution. It is that of making a safe & commodious church-path. Mr Stanger has given as much of his field as is necessary for widening the church lane, where it is proposed to form a raised path of a sufficient width, secured from carriages by a curb-stone. The estimate is 27 £. – there is a hedge to be grubbed, another planted, fenced &c. & if there be any overplus, as it is hoped there will, it goes to improve the path between the church lane & the town. Greenwich Hospital

contributes railing & two guineas. M^r Stevenson

two guineas. – Calvert, one with the use of carts & horses, – & there the list ended when it was brought to me by Mr Edmondson. The intention is to go from house to house, & collect even the smallest sums that may be offered for a work of general convenience.

Thank you for Coltons pamphlett

which I have received this very day. It is written with great ability, but not always with judgement, & there is a sneer at Lady Byron which would have been improper anywhere, & is here peculiarly out of place.

– I heard a good deal of Colton some years ago from Standard, & the impression then made upon me was he was a man of brilliant talents, but not altogether sane.

There is a cottage just behind Wordsworths at Rydal Mount, where the people had a most providential deliverance two nights ago.

A person going out from Wordsworths about eleven o clock, perceived a strange light there, & gave the alarm just as the flames broke out, the whole family being so fast asleep that there was great difficulty in wakening them. Had he come out five minutes sooner, he would have seen nothing, – & in ten minutes later it would have been too late to save their lives. The fire began in the stable & burnt down that & the house.

You will have read in the papers of our tremendous flood in which the clergyman of Basenthwaite

was taken off his horse, by the turnpike, carried over two hedges & drowned. Nothing equal to it is remembered in these parts. A few days afterwards poor Clarke

dropt down dead, nearly upon the same spot.

I am sorry to read of the death of my old school & chamber-fellow James Boswell,

– who was the very image of his father,

& followed him but too closely in a weakness which has shortened his days. An inoffensive, good-natured, chearful man he was, possessed of good natural parts & much acquired knowledge. He was about three years my junior. When I look round upon the sea of life, for those with whom I began my voyage, I perceive now that they are rari nantes.

If Mrs Peachy has not seen a little volume of poems entitled the Widows Tale by the Author of Ellen Fitzarthur,

let me recommend it to her: The authoress is a Miss Bowles of Buckland in the New Forest, near Lymington. Few writers of the possess a finer feeling, or a greater power of expression.

The Ladies join in kind remembrances. Present mine also to Mrs Peachy, & to M^r Henry,

if he be with you, & believe me