To the same.
Rugby: December 23, 1845.
I hope you will forgive me. I am not coming home before Monday. It appears that F. Newman (Newman’s brother) is coming here on Friday; and I am very desirous to see him, and my hosts urge me to stay.
F. Newman, by-the-by, is the author of the paper in the ‘Prospective Review,’ on Arnold’s Miscellaneous Works. I really think I ought not to miss this opportunity of seeing him; so I trust you and mother will forgive my truancy for once, though I fear that you will have but a meagre Christmas party.
To Rev. T. Burbidge.
Liverpool: January 19, 1846.
Price has been writing a letter or two in the ‘Balance,’ a newspaper set up on principles which may be described as Arnoldite out of Evangelical, a somewhat mongrel progeny, perhaps, with more of profession than fervour; and the paper is certainly weak, though certainly at the same time well meaning. It wishes to become a sort of Sunday newspaper for all sorts of people, gentle and simple, nobleman, and serving man, and working man. Gurney, I believe, is editor; Lord Robert Grosvenor and some others have promised to pay the piper for a while. Gurney puts poems into it. I wrote a letter myself which is to appear in its columns next week. Another newspaper, ‘The Daily News,’ is placarding itself for issue on the 21st, the literary department under the direction of Charles Dickens. Is ‘Boz’ proposing to reform the press? to combat, a printer’s ink St. Michael, the Dragon immorality of the ‘Times’? It is open to conjecture. But perhaps it is only a quiet little job in the money-making way. Half a dozen new newspapers are commencing their career; it is almost like a railway mania.
An evening or two after I wrote I met Martineau accidentally. I liked him greatly. He talked simply, courteously, and ably, and has a forehead with a good deal of that rough-hewn mountainous strength which one used to look at when at lesson in the library at Rugby not without trembling.
To his Sister.
Oxford: February 1846.