In the case of a book, half a loaf is not better than no bread. I never yet saw any epitome, or selections from a book that was good for anything, which did not omit things of main consequence, – & perhaps the very things which would have been to me the most interesting I would have nothing abridged except the Stat Acts of Parliament, – & Comments on the Bible, – & if they were cut down to what is either useful or necessary, the Statutes at large

would be contained in a pocket volume of reasonable type, & Mants Bible lose 99 notes out of an hundred.

If you had gone to Rickmans you would have found that he merely came to town to be present at the proroguement,

– & made no stay there. Bertha & the family will not return there till after Christmas. We heard from them yesterday, when there arrived a gold chain for Isabel, in a letter, sent by R. in Berthas name as her remembrance of her sisters birthday – another frank bringing at the same time poor Berthas genuine remembrance – which was a cornelian cross. This is like Rickman – whose hand is as open as his heart.

I am now amusing myself with Budaeus’s Epistles,

– at least such of them are in Latin, for they are half in Greek, & the Greek is printed that the contractions present quite as great an impediment as the language. His works are among the books which I last received from Landor, – from whom I had a very pleasing letter last week. He has sent over another volumes of Conversations

to the press.

One of the ugliest & dirtiest of all my Spanish books is affording me great amusement at this time – Obras en Prosa de D Juan de Zavaleta – Coronista del Rey – (Charles xxxx 2d) (Carlos 2)

The book looks as if Mal-lavado

had read it. I know nothing more of the author, – he has all the faults of his age in great perfection, but they were faults which it required some ability to excel in, – & I have seldom raked in a dunghill where so many pearls were to be found. The valuable part of his writings relates to the manners of his time. In a work which would fill two English octavos he gives xxx the history of a Dia de Fiesta

as past by the different classes of men in Madrid. With some caricature, & a great deal of inane sententiousness, it is a more compleat picture of manners than I have any where else seen.

The Doctor hears of me today in the shape of a haunch of venison. – We are living in the midst of tempests. Since Michaelmas

we have had continual rain & storms, with only a short interval of severe cold. – D^r Bell, like you has been suffering with rheumatism which he appears to have relieved by using the warm bath, as hot as it could be borne. Clarkson has been cured by the meadow saffron.

You would be relieved if you were within reach of the Caldas, or if you would try the English Caldas.