362 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



it did some days ago. As I am much in the house at 

 this season, I get in the Times for two hours, which is 

 an amusement, though at preseut a %nelancholy one ; for 

 no one can read about the Crimea and Scutari hospitals 

 without shrinking from the future. The last Quarterly 

 is not comforting, though very interesting : I mean the 

 Crimean article. Is it by your friend Kinglake, whom 

 Dr. Symonds wrote me he had been telegraphed to attend 

 some time ago ? We fancy so. I have not yet seen the 

 Edinburgh, which defends Government/ 



As soon as the work of the session was over, Forbes 

 and Mrs. Forbes repaired to Clifton, to pay a visit to 

 their much valued physician and friend there. After 

 a stay of more than a month they returned, stopping at 

 the Observatory at Greenwich, and at Cambridge, on 

 their way to Scotland. About the middle of July the 

 whole family set out for Braemar, where they had taken 

 for their summer quarters the Free Church manse. 

 With its owner, the late Rev. Hugh Cobban, a man of 

 more than common cultivation, an acquaintance began, 

 which quickly ripened into friendship. Tis thus that 

 Forbes writes to Dr. Syinonds during his sojourn in 

 Braemar : 



To DR. SYMONDS. 



'BRAEMAR, ABERDEENSHIRE, July 29th, 1855. 

 ' . . . Our friend the Free Church minister has honour- 

 ably acquitted himself of his undertaking. . . Our manse 

 can hardly be said to be in the village. It is at least the 

 last house in it, and open on all sides : a stream, a tribu- 

 tary of the Dee, in a deep rocky channel a little way in 

 front, and a wood of pine and birch almost the exclu- 

 sive trees, except the alder, of this country at the back : 

 both of which are the delight of the children, I mean the 

 wood and the river. We hear much of Edmund's and 

 George's fishing excursions, though we have not as yet 

 seen any results. The village is small, and irregularly 

 built ; contains two general shops and a good inn, a Free 

 and Established church, and a very pretty Roman Catholic 

 chapel, built under the auspices of the Duchess of Leeds, 



