110 CAMBRIDGE. [Ch. V. 



staying at the Fox's, near Derby ; it is a very pleasant house, 

 and the music meeting went off very well. I want to hear how 

 Yates likes his gun, and what use he has made of it. 



If the bottle is not large you can buy another for me, and 

 when you pass through Shrewsbury you can leave these 

 treasures, and I hope, if you possibly can, you will stay a day 

 or two with me, as I hope I need not say how glad I shall bo 

 to see you again. Fox remarked what deuced good natured 

 fellows your friends at Barmouth must be ; and if I did not 

 know that you and Butler were so, I would not think of giving 

 you so much trouble. 



In the following January we find him looking forward with 

 pleasure to the beginning of another year of his Cambridgo 

 life : he writes to Fox, who had passed his examination : — 



" I do so wish I were now in Cambridge (a very selfish wish, 

 however, as I was not with you in all your troubles and 

 misery), to join in all the glory and happiness, which dangers 

 gone by can give. How wo would talk, walk, and entomolo- 

 gise ! Sappho should be the best of bitches, and Dash, of 

 dogs ; then should be ' peace on earth, good will to men,' — 

 which, by the way, I always think the most perfect description 

 of happiness that words can give." 



Later on in the Lent term he writes to Fox : — 



" I am leading a quiet everyday sort of a life ; a little of 

 Gibbon's History in the morning, and a good deal of Van John 

 in the evening ; this, with an occasional ride with Simcox and 

 constitutional with Whitley, makes up tho regular routine of 

 my days. I seo a good deal both of Herbert and Whitley, and 

 the more I see of them increases every day the respect I have 

 for their excellent understandings and dispositions. They 

 have been giving some very gay parties, nearly sixty men there 

 both evenings." 



C. D. to W. D. Fox. Christ's College, April 1 [1829]. 



My dear Fox — In your letter to Holden you are pleased to 

 observe " that of all the blackguards you ever met with I am 

 the greatest." Upon this observation I shall make no remarks, 

 excepting that I must give you all due credit for acting on it 

 most rigidly. And now I should like to know in what one 

 particular are you less of a blackguard than I am ? You idle 

 old wretch, why have you not answered my last letter, which 

 I am sure I forwarded to Clifton nearly three weeks ago? 

 If I was not really very anxious to hear what you are doing, 



