The summer, or what ought to have been the summer, has slipt away; & the autumn, or what ought to be autumn, is passing after it, & I have not yet been further from my fire side than a mornings walk could carry me. I can tell you however now that I shall start from home with my daughter Edith as early as possible in November,

or if possible before the beginning of that month; & that after halting a week or ten days in London I shall pursue my course to Crediton.

By that time my Book of the Church

will be finished, which ought to have been finished long ago. The last long interruption was occasioned by laying it aside to prepare a paper for the next Quarterly,

– but continual interruptions arise from visitors, the necessity of exercise, & the temptations which a fine day brings with it, to all which not a little must be added for a want of that dogged resolution which goes steadily on with what ought to be done, & an inclination to be xxxx doing something else. I have not thoroughly recovered the ill effect which my annual cold left behind it this year. Last year you were my physician, & began my cure by taking me abroad. I have felt the want of such a companion now, & when opportunity has offered in other respects the miserable weather has obstructed all our plans. So wet a season has never occurred in the remembrance of the oldest persons here: A long journey will brace me up again. – By the by will Fanny Jane

be still in the neighbourhood of London when I arrive there? If so, & it suit with her plans I may convoy her home.

I think I told you in a former letter than my brother had resolved upon removing his family to Canada, & was gone before to reconnoitre the country & prepare the way. He went, fled thro the country as fast as steamboats & stagecoaches could carry xxxx him, did not even go to look at the part where he might have had an allotment, learned absolutely nothing more than he knew before he set out & returned three months after his departure having determined that he to give up all intention of emigration, – some set off to this vexation & the long train of uneasiness & anxiety which awaits me from that quarter, you will have seen that my brother Henry is appointed one of the King’s physicians

This is a great step for him, & will undoubtedly be the means of increasing his practice.

The summer has brought with it its usual flock of strangers, some of them sufficiently amusing. My civilities to them are regulated something by the recommendations with which they present themselves, & a little more perhaps by their likeability, which depends something upon the cut of their jib. You know how impossible it is not to read faces, & be in some degree influenced by what we see in them. We have had two travellers from New England, young men both,

& well qualified to keep up the good impression which their countrymen had left here. Last week we had an Englishman

who having travelled in the Levant & been made prisoner by the Bedouins near Mount Sinai, chuses to relate his adventures instead of publishing them, & tells Arabian stories after the manner of the professed story tellers in the East. I wish you had seen him the other evening gravely delivering a tale of a magic ring (it was a full hour long) to some a circle of some sixteen persons in this room, – the Vicar

being one of the number. But the most interesting stranger who has found his way here, is a Somersetshire man Morrison

by name, who at the age of two or three & thirty, & beginning with little or nothing has realized some 150,000 £ in trade, & was then bound to New Lanark, with the intention of vesting 5000 £ in Owens Experiment,

if he fou should find his expectations confirmed by what he sees there. This person is well acquainted with the principle men among the Freethinking Christians;

he likes the men, but sees reason to doubt their doctrine. He seems to be searching for truth in such a temper of mind, that there is good reason for thinking he will find it. – At present we have some old friends on the Island, sisters to the first M^rs Peaxhxy Peachy, with two other Ladies their relations,

– & we are waiting for [MS missing] weather to take with them that Cart excursion which succeeded so well when you were of the party, – to Buttermere & so by Honistar Crag into Borrodale. But when the sun will shine & when the roads will be dry, x is more than the weatherwise can promise us.

My household are in tolerable order. It has been increased this year by the acquisition of a most worthy Tom Cat, who when the tenants of the next house

departed, was invited to this, where he received the name of Rumpelstilschen, & has become a great favourite. I cannot say of him as Bedford does of a similar animal, that he is the best-for-nothing Cat in the world, because he has done good service upon the rats, & been successively promoted to the rank of Baron, Viscount & Earl. In most other things we are as you left us, – except that just now the waters are not in their place, – having overflowed their banks.

All here desire to be most kindly remembered. Make my best wishes to M^rs Lightfoot,

& those whom in a few weeks I shall know by person as well as by name.