I venture to request one of those favours which it is not difficult either to ask or grant. My brother, D^r Southey, is desirous as it now becomes him, to be a member of the Royal Society. Will your Lordship oblige me by signing his Certificate for ballot,

– which on the part of his own profession will have the signatures of Sir Henry Halford

& D^r Babington?

It is a matter of great satisfaction to me that the Quarterly Review is consigned to M^r John Coleridge’s hand, a person omne exceptione major,

who will neither suffer severity to be used when it is not called for, nor withheld when it is well-deserved. – I have long desired to have that channel open for the Catholic question,

– a question upon which all the strength that can be called forth will be needful, for there is evidently a crisis at hand. – I had almost promised the Bishop of Limerick to visit him in the ensuing spring, that I might obtain some satisfactory knowledge of the state of that country, from seeing it myself, & from the information which he is so excellently able to supply. But the rebellion is likely to break out before that time. Sooner or later it must come. It may be doubted whether any consistency & vigour could now prevent it; & if they could, – I know not where they are to be found. – But I am no despondent: My trust in Providence is too well-founded & too firm.

The Methodist who wrote to me from Beverley,

has, I see, with some of his associates been expelled from the Society, & they are trying, as in Ireland, to collect a body of Church Methodists.

Methodism appears to have reached that point in which it will lose more by schisms than it can gain in proselytes, & its numbers are likely to be kept up only by natural increase. But they will take part with the Church, when the other Dissenters make common cause with the Roman Catholicks; & they are numerous enough to make this of some consequence when the sense of the country is to be expressed.