HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 215 



Dr. Scouler in. He is a very learned and very talented man. 

 I suppose Dr. S. will bring back a droll account of the inter- 

 view. 



To the Same. 



Trinity College, Dublin, July 11, 1850. 



I did not write to you last week, being the 4th of July, 

 when I was too much absorbed in loyal grief over that melan- 

 choly anniversary to venture a pen across the Atlantic. 



There is no need to tell you what has been with us the 

 absorbing topic of last week's conversation — the great loss the 

 country has sustained in the death of Sir Robert Peel. Only 

 sixty-two years of age, and for forty years he had stood m a 

 prominent public position, and for many of those years ^filled 

 the first place in the ministry. All parties have united in 

 mourning his loss, and showing respect to his memory ; and 

 especially in the manufacturing districts marks of public 

 sympathy have been awarded. The Assembly of France 

 paid a higher compliment to him than our own House of 

 Lords, in placing a minute on their journals expressive of 

 sympathy — a most remarkable tribute to the memory of an 

 Englishman from Frenchmen. The same week witnessed the 

 death of the old Duke of Cambridge — a good old soul, but no 

 loss to the public generally, save to the many charities where 

 he presided, and for which his presence at their public dinners 

 used to encourage subscriptions. And now to-day has died 

 here poor Jack Spain, an old cripple that I used to employ to 

 bring parcels between the college and the quay. He had a 

 donkey and cart, and earned a miserable livelihood by carrying 

 parcels, but was so much of a cripple that his customers had to 

 help him to put up anything that was at all heavy. And now 

 he has died while the bells are tolling for a royal duke. The 

 contrast is so great between the conditions of these two that if 

 we are to judge of man by his physical and mental development, 

 one is tempted to believe in the " unity of the races," in spite 

 of Dr. H. and Agassiz. When you see such a hiatus between 

 two who are certainly descended from a common stock, there is 

 hope for the Negro still. 



Dr. and Mrs. Gray have arrived in London. I look forward 

 with infinite pleasure to meeting them agaiu. I wish more of 



