167 



had "closed your accounts with all your correspondents." Had I not misunderstood 

 those words, I should have answered your letter long ago, and thanked you for the 

 information contained in it." 



This correspondent must have enlivened some of Otley's solitary- 

 hours by his lively and entertaining letters. In one dated July, 

 1855, he says : — "Your mention of Sedgwick reminds me of some letters by 

 the warm-hearted but very comical clergyman, Sydney Smith, to Sedg- 

 wick's geological comrade, Murchison, in which he asks whether in the 

 numerous worlds distributed through the universe, one of them might 

 possibly be inhabited by men of stone, perhaps of Parian marble ; and 

 then he adds, ' what a Paradise for Murchison to spend eternity with a 

 grey-wacke woman.' If I stumble on Sedgwick, I must rally him about 

 his having a like reason for having hitherto remained a bachelor." 



The following letter to Dr. Henry, before alluded to, shows how his 

 mind was in activity in his ninetieth year. 



Keswick, August 5th, 1854. 

 Dear Sir, — 



I duly received your valuable present of the "Life of Dr. Dalton." It 

 must have given you considerable'trouble to collect and arrange all the materials. 

 Some parts I knew before, but the chief articles are so far beyond me that I shall 

 not think of reading them : but still I shall prize it highly in remembrance of old 

 association. I think you have done justice without withholding anything through 

 favour. In my narrative, p. 15.5, 1. 8, by a tj^pographical error, hause is converted 

 into house ; it will scarcely be observed by any but myself. This word gave me 

 some trouble in my first publication ; I thought that hawse related chiefly to 

 shipping, and hose to garments, therefore as I could find no other purpose to which 

 the word hause was applied, I adopted it. I have since found it wrote hawse in 

 the ordnance survey. 



My general health is nearly as good as it was two years ago, but my limbs are 

 much weaker, my head not so steady, and my eyes more watery. 



I am, &c., 



JON. OTLEY. 



John Jackson, of Warrington, a member of the Society of Friends, 

 kept up correspondence with Otley to the year of his death (1856). On 

 December 20th, 1855, he writes: — "Seldom, if ever, have I beheld 

 writing so neat and firm by anyone of thy years." Alluding to the life 



