I have not written to you, I think, since Tom’s return,

– which I should have done had there been anything satisfactory to communicate concerning him. He fled thro the country, learnt nothing there which he did not know perfectly well before he set out, & made up his mind not to take his family there with so much precipitation, – that the journey might very well have been spared. What he dreams of doing or attempting I know not.

By this nights post I send Murray the first part of an article upon Charles the seconds reign, for which the new edition of Burnet gives occasion.

The Portugueze Embassadors relation supplies me with some curious facts,

– & without entering into any detail, but treating merely upon the changes in society which were going on during that reign the subject would afford matter for three or four papers. You have added a drawing to a strange account of an aerostatic machine

in one of the volumes of the Papeis Politicos,

– I have found an earlier account of the same kind, equally strange in Sylvius’s continuation of Aitzema’s history

– both which I shall here bring forward.

It is curious to observe how long men play with discoveries before they perceive how to apply them.

In a fortnight I shall have finished this paper & a month more will finish my ecclesiastical subject;

– my ways & means will then I trust be pretty well provided for some time to come, & I shall set forth for London, bringing Edith May with me.

She has often been ailing this season, & is I think just in that state of health in which good medical advice is likely to be xx useful.

Landor tells me he has sent me a box of books, – about 70 volumes of all sorts, – mostly very old ones. I have desired Longman to look out for them at the Custom House. The collection is a very curious one, & heartily glad shall I be to see it arrive. He is living at Florence, & urges me to visit him there, – which I will gladly do whenever I can afford time & means for passing a winter in Italy. And this I dare say I shall one day be able to xxx accomplish

I must endeavor to see if some of the Doctors Portugueze friends can procure the Sermons of P. Antonio das Chagas.

He was a man of extraordinary character as well as great abilities, & I am sure that much will be found there relating to the manners of his age. When may we expect news of the Catalan history?

I should be very impatient for it, & not a little provoked with Murray, if I had not plenty of employment during the delay

Little by little I am getting an insight into the Teutonic languages chiefly for the purpose of reading the old German Romances, & the poems of the Minnesingers,

& tracing their connection xxxx with the early poetry of this country. I therefore take half an hour of the Saxon Chronicle

every night. In all studies of this kind a pupil, or fellow-student, is the best teacher. However I find that I can get on alone, tho neither so fast nor so pleasantly. Edward should help me, if he were near enough. When he can command his hours of leisure I shall earnestly wish him to take up the German grammar, & ground himself in that language, – after which all <the acquirement of any> others will be mere amusement to him. Nothing could be so gratifying to me as to think that he would profit as much by my collections as I have done, & am doing, by yours.