To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

March 11th, 1843.-I am reading a very interesting Memoir of Nicholas Ferrer,* who lived in the times of James I. and Charles I. Were it not for certain expressions on the subject of grace, which clearly show that the writer is no disciple of Pusey, one might suppose it a publication of the Oxford School,-the sentiments, and some of the principles which it illustrates, being just such as Paget seeks to recommend by his amusing Tales. Without intended disparagement to Paget, how great is the superiority of the narrative to the fiction as a vehicle of truth!the one bears something the same relation to the other, when carefully criticised, as the piece of linen or lace, viewed through a microscope, to the natural leaf or slip of wood examined in the same way.

VI.

A Quiet Heart.

...

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE. March 22nd, 1843.I chat away thus to you, my dear brother, as if I had a light gay heart, but I have only a quiet one. When I go out of doors from the incessant occupation of mind and hands, the full sense of my widowhood comes upon me, and the sunshine only seems to draw it out into vividness. Hampstead is a sadder place to me than Highgate. Yet sadness is not quite the word

* The friend of George Herbert, and editor of his Poems. Izaak Walton, in his Life of Herbert, gives a striking account of this remarkable man, who founded a Christian Society at Gidding Hall, Huntingdon, for purposes of devotion and charity, in accordance with the principles of the Church.— E. C.

for my feelings, that seems too near to unhappiness. When I hear of happy marriages now, I do not feel that wretched sense of contrast with my own solitary state which I should once have felt. I rather feel a sort of compassionate tenderness for those who are entering on a career of earthly enjoyment, the transitoriness of which they must sooner or later be brought to a sense of. But for them, as for myself, there is a better communion beyond this present world, which, if begun here, will in the end supersede all other blessedness arising from union with objects of love.

VII.

Monument of Robert Southey-Recumbent Statues.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE.

March 28th, 1843.-I scarce know what is finally settled about my uncle's monument. A modification of Lough's design seems most approved. The recumbent figure is all right in theory, but awkward in practice. Do what you will it looks deathy, with too real and actual a deathiness. This is one of the instances, I think, of the difficulty of reviving old fashions; if you alter them at all, or even take them from amid the circumstances and states of feeling among which they were originated, you have a spectre of the past rather than the living past itself, a kind of resurrection. The recumbent figures on the old tombs are rather death idealized than death itself. The armour veiled from view the lifelessness of the limbs, and brought the body, as by a medium, into harmony with the sepulchral stone. The full robe of the dame by the warrior's side did the same thing in another way, and contrasted well with the male attire; and that one attitude of the hands crossed upon the breast, or pressed together in prayer, alone perfectly agrees with the whole design. The brasses are not open to these remarks, because they are much further removed from life, and therefore cannot offend by the semblance of death.

CONSOLATION AND RESIGNATION.

139

VIII.

On her Loss-Injury done to the Mind by brooding over Grief.

To Mrs. PLUMMER, Gateshead.

10, Chester Place, April 27th, 1843.-Your letter was very welcome to me, and I will thank you for it at once, though I cannot now write at all as I wish, either as to matter or manner, so much am I occupied, and so unequal am I to getting much done in a short time, from bodily weakness and sensitiveness of nerves.

What you say, dearest, of your own particular grief in the loss that bears so heavily upon me, that but for very special mercy it must have crushed me to the earth, is extremely gratifying to me. Nothing soothes me so much as to hear his deserved praises, and to have assurances from his friends of the esteem and affection he excited. Few men have ever been more generally liked, or more dearly loved in a narrower sphere. Never before his illness did I fully know what a holy, what a blessed thing is the love of brothers and sisters to each other. By my bereavement all my relations seem to be brought closer to me than before, for pity excites affection, and gratitude for kindness and sympathy has the same effect. But my beloved Henry's brothers are twice as much to me as in his precious lifetime. John is such a friend and supporter as few widows, I think, are blest with. You will not, I am sure, dear friend, think me boastful, but grateful for saying all this. I feel it now such a duty, such a necessity, to cling fast to every source of comfort-to be for my children's sake as happy, as willing to live on in this heart-breaking world as possible, that I dwell on all the blessings which God continues to me, and has raised up to me out of the depths of affliction, with an earnestness of endeavour which is its own reward; for so long as the heart and mind are full of movement, employed continually on not unworthy objects, there may

be sorrow, but there cannot be despair. The stagnation of the spirit, the dull, motionless brooding on one miserable set of thoughts, is that against which in such cases as mine we must both strive and pray. After all, it would be impossible for one bereaved like me to care for the goings on of this world, but for the blessed prospect of another; and it is a most thankworthy circumstance that the more agitating our trials become, the brighter that prospect, after a little while, beams forth, through the reaction of the mind when strongly excited. The heaviest hours come on after the subsidence of that excitement, when we come out again from the chamber of death and mourning into all the common ways of life. All the social intellectual enjoyments, new books, the sight of sculpture, painting, the conversation of pleasant friends, are full of trial to me. I turn away from what excites any lively emotion of admiration or pleasure, now that I can no longer share it with him who for twenty years shared all my happiest thoughts.

IX.

Dryness of Controversial Sermons.

To the Hon. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE, Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary. June 27th, 1843.-Dr. Arnold's sermon is all you described it. Would that of this sort, so practical, and appealing to the heart and religious mind, were at least the majority of preached sermons ! Some doctrinizing from the pulpit may be necessary. But surely it ought to be subservient and subordinate to the practical; whereas, nine times out of ten, the practical point merely serves as an introduction or a pretext for a setting up the opinions of one school of thinkers, and a pulling down the opinion of another, with charges against the latter almost always one-sided and unfair. This sermon of Dr. Arnold's, and one which I heard from Dr. Hodgson at Broadstairs on death and judgment, are quite oases in the hot sandy wilderness of

sermons which my mind's reverted eye beholds. I do not mean that many of them were not good; but when they are viewed altogether, a character of heat and barrenness seems to pervade them.

X.

A Visit to Margate-Domestic Economy in its Right Place-An Eton Schoolboy-Reading under Difficulties High Moral Aim of Carlyle's "Hero-worship "-Joy of a True Christian—The Logic of the Heart and the Logic of the Head.

To Mrs. FARRER.

12, Cliff Terrace, Margate, Sept. 5th, 1843.-My dear Friend-Here we are, my children and Nurse and self, on the East Cliff at Margate, a few miles from the spot where I sojourned with you in June. That fortnight is marked among the fortnights of this my first year of widowhood with a comparative whiteness, in the midst of such deep (though never, I must thankfully acknowledge, never, even at the earliest period of my loss, quite unrelieved) blackness. I fixed upon this place, instead of Broadstairs or Ramsgate, on account of its greater cheapness, and because it could be reached with rather less exertion. Lodgings certainly are cheaper than I could have got them in an equally good situation at more genteel sea-bathing places; but provisions are dear enough-lamb 81⁄2d., and beef 9d.! I am so often twitted with my devotion to intellectual things, that I am always glad of an opportunity of sporting a little beef-and-mutton erudition, though I cannot help thinking that, as society is now constituted in the professional middle rank of life—still more in a higher one-women may get on and make their families comfortable, and manage with tolerable economy-by which I mean economy that does not cost more than it is worth of time and devotion of spirit-with less knowledge of details respecting what we are to eat, and what to put on, than used to be thought essential to the wise and worthy