APPENDIX. 579 



pay the piper, with eight hundred millions of pounds sterling staring 

 us in the face ? 



My little book is going into a second edition. 



We live in hopes of seeing you this summer. My sisters send 

 their love to you, and bid. me assure you that they will take good 

 care of you. Believe me, my dear friend, ever most truly yours, 



CHARLES WATERTON. 



To the Same. 



WALTON HALL, July 26, 1859. 



My dear Friend, From day to day I have deferred answering 

 your most welcome communication of June the 26th, in order to be 

 able to tell you exactly what my summer movements would be 

 whether I should remain here, in this bleak and sunless atmosphere, 

 or go to the Continent in quest of a delicious noon-day's sun in the 

 inviting balcony of Professor Ketts at Antwerp. You may have for- 

 gotten, but I have not forgotten, the scolding you gave me for having 

 fallen asleep when the comfortable sun-rays were imparting warmth 

 to my uncovered skull. On Monday next we start on our way to 

 Aix-la-Chapelle for about a month. Would that we could meet our 

 dear western brother there ! Nothing more would be wanted to 

 complete our happiness. 



Since I received your last letter, mighty deeds of death have been 

 done amid contending parties on the fertile soil of Italy ; whilst my 

 own peaceful little valley has been visited by a thunderstorm, which, 

 for destruction on the fields and houses, has no parallel in the 

 memory of the present generation. 



The abrupt termination of the war, as you will have seen by the 

 papers, has astonished everybody. Nobody can account for it ; and 

 conjectures are so various and so contradictory, that there is no re- 

 liance to be put on anything which you read in the newspapers 

 especially in the Times, that arch weathercock, that swallower of a 

 camel and strainer at a gnat, whenever it may suit its ends to gull 

 its readers. Napoleon seems to have outwitted both his admirers 

 and defamers, and everybody is asking, Will the peace be permanent? 



