166 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xn 



You will, I think, hereafter like Campbell's Lives of the 

 Chancellors, and it is a capital book for you, my dear future 

 Lord Chancellor of England, to read. ... I have been 

 playing a good deal at billiards, and have lately got up to 

 my play, and made some splendid strokes ! I have at last 

 got up some strength, and taken two good long walks in this 

 charming country. My de&r ^ ^^ 



Yours, C. D. 



DOWN. Thursday evening [1858]. 

 MY DEAR GULIELMUS, 



Go and have at once a good and deliberate look at my 

 old rooms 1 and if you then prefer them make the change, 

 though it is a confounded bore that money should have been 

 wasted over papering, etc. I much misdoubted at times 

 whether you had chosen wisely. I think what you say about 

 your present stairs being idle and noisy, a real and good 

 reason for your changing. I know well, far too well, what 

 temptations there are at Cambridge to idleness ; so I am sure 

 these ought to be avoided. I do hope that you will keep 

 to your already acquired energetic and industrious habits: 

 your success in life will mainly depend on this. So much 

 for preachment, but it is a good and old established custom 

 that he who pays may preach; and as I shall have to pay 

 if you move, (as I rather advise) so I have had my preach. 



DOWN, 15th [1858]. 



I should like to know whether my old gyp, Impey, is still 

 alive; if so please see him and say that I enquired after 

 him. . . . 



I am very glad that you like King's it used to be a great 

 pleasure to me. You have to see the beautiful pictures in 

 the FitzWilliam. The backs of the Colleges (N.B. not 

 Colleges as some people spell it) are indeed beautiful; I 

 do not think there is anything in Oxford to equal them. 



1 William Darwin was at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he 

 occupied his father's rooms. 



