Here then I am, nothing the worse for having been wheeled over fifteen hundred miles in the course of fifteen weeks. I no longer feel the effect of motion in my head, nor of jolting in my tail. I have taken again to my old coat & old shoes: xxxxga <enjoy> as I used to do the wholesome indulgence of xxxxxxx xxx after dinner – dine at the reasonable hour of four, <enjoy as I used to do, the wholesome indulgence of a nap after dinner,> drink tea at six, sup at half-past nine, – xx spend half an hour over a sober folio & a glass of black-currant rum with warm water & sugar, & then to bed. Days seemed like weeks while I was away, so many & so various were my engagements: & now that I am settling to my wonted round of occupations the week seems <passes> like a day. If my life is not like that of the prisca gens mortalium,

it is quite as happy xxx, – & when you hear Qui fit Mecaenas

quoted you may reply that you know one man at least, <who is> perfectly contented with his lot.

I was charged by Edith particularly to describe to her how Mrs Coleridge looked when the fatal horn should first be exhibited to her astonished eyes.

The task which my daughter imposed upon me, my powers of language are not sufficient to discharge. The horn, I must tell you was made useful, as a case for Westall lithographic print of Warwick Castle.

The Dogstar packed up it carefully up with my umbrella in brown paper, so that no person could possibly discover what the mysterious package contained; & great curiosity was excited when it was first observed at home. M^rs C. stood by (I sent for her) while the unpacking was deliberately performed. The string was untied, – not cut: I unbound it round after round; – & then methodically took off the paper. The first emotion was an expression of contemptuous disappointment at sight of – the umbrella, which I was careful should be first discovered. But when the horn appeared, the fatal horn,

then oh then –

Grosvenor it was an expression of dolorous dismay which Richter or Wilkie

could hardly represent unless they had witnessed it, – it was at once so piteous & so comical. Up went the brows, down went the chin, & yet the face appeared to widen as much as it was elongated, by an undefinable drawing of the lips which seemed to flatten all the features I know not whether sorrow or resentment predominated in the eyes, – sorrow, as, in the Dutch manner, she pitied herself; – or anger when she thought of me, & of your brother from whom I received the precious gift – & whose benevolence I loudly lauded. She wished him at MO-KO, – (where that x is I know not) – & me she wished to a worse place, if any worse there be. In the midst of her emotion, I called upon Sara to observe her well, saying that I was strictly charged by my daughter to xxxxx the effect <make a faithful & full report> xhxx The comical wrath which this excited added in no slight degree to the rich effect. Then I blew a blast which tho not worthy of King Ramiro

was nevertheless a good blast, but she ran – & yet finally, which I hold to be the greatest triumph of my act, I reconciled her to the horn, – yes, reconciled her to it, – by reminding her that rats might be driven away by it, according as it is written in the story of Jeffery.