222 BUSINESS, RECREATION : SUNSHINE. SHADOW, 



gone three times from the sitting-room to the kitchen, 

 taking each time a caulker of whisky, which actually 

 seemed to strengthen him for the time, but I suppose, in 

 the long-run, and continued as it was from day to day, 

 was his destruction. I hear nothing of my brother's life 

 of the Scotch worthy. Except a Life of Burns, I under- 

 stand he has written little or nothing for several years, 

 having never resumed his literary labours (apart from 

 what was required for the duties of his class) since his 

 wife's death. It gives me great pleasure, however, to 

 know that he took up his pen again recently, at least for 

 a day or two, while writing the review (of course a very 

 laudatory one) of Macaulay's magnificent ' Lays of Ancient 

 Rome' in the last number of Blackwood's Magazine. 



" We passed a delightful autumn in Westmoreland, where 

 we found the 'eternal hills' much as they were of old, 

 when I first knew them some thirty years ago, but the 

 society, of course, greatly changed. However, a few re- 

 mained of those whom I desired to see, especially old 

 Wordsworth, who is in great force both of mind and 

 body. I regret to say that poor South ey is in a deplorable 

 state, so far as his once splendid intellect is concerned. 

 He knows no one, not even his own wife, and requires to 

 be fed and led like a child." 



