324 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



You seem to have been very happy at the sea-side. You talk 

 of managing a boat, but here am I, who have been all round the 

 world and back again, who would not find myself much at home 

 if put afloat, and told to guide myself into harbour again. 



To Mrs. Gray. 



Trinity College, Dublin February 9tb. 



I am sorry to hear from Asa that you are getting through 

 the winter so uncomfortably, but I hope with the crocus and 

 narcissus buds you will begin to pop up again. You know 

 Herbert's old poem of the flowers underground — 



Where they together, 



All the hard weather, 



Dead to the world keep house unknown. 



" Gone to visit their mother root," as he quaintly says. Well, 

 I trust as the days lengthen that you will throw off your trouble- 

 some ailment and get abroad again. 



It is just ten years (" come fall ") since I made my voyage to 

 America, and what a many things have happened since ! I have 

 seen more changes of one kind or another in these ten years than 

 in the preceding eight-and-thirty. This reminds me to say that 

 I have finished " The Autocrat," and enjoyed it more and more 

 as I went along. It is thoroughly fresh and playfully keen, just 

 what we should look for from the author ; and the tone through- 

 out is so good and healthful, that it is very pleasant reading 

 towards the end. You may remember an account he gives of a 

 '' Hangman's Pillar " seen somewhere in England, and he offers 

 a copy of the book to the first person who will tell him where he 

 lias seen it. This is like Nebuchadnezzar, who required to be 

 told his dream as well as the reading thereof. Howbeit I asked 



Dr. F (my factotum), and he at once replied that it had 



been discussed a couple of years ago in " Notes and Queries." 

 Yesterday he brought me the volume, namely, second series, 

 Vol. I. (January to June, 1856), where Mr. Holmes will find under 

 ' ' Hangman's Stories " in the index, several references. It seems 

 the legend exists in a great many parts of England where stones 

 are shown. I fear this does not increase the authenticity of the 

 story. It is like the multiplication of relies, every new one 

 diminishing the value of the evidence for the former. I have 



