To Lord Derby
C. O., July 10th.—I am much obliged to you for the copy of your excellent speech. In this remarkable debate coram populo, it seems to me that the defeat of the Home Rulers in argument has been even more complete than their rout at the polling booths. The people have shown more serious intelligence than I had given them credit for. I saw this even in our Hampshire bumpkins.
On July 20th the Gladstonian Ministry resigned, and before the end of the month the new ministry was formed under Lord Salisbury as premier and first lord of the treasury. The Journal is occupied with personal and family affairs of special interest.
July 25th.—To Antwerp by the 'Baron Osy.' Forty-seven Americans on board. Aix very dull. Back to London on August 11th.
August 18th.—Letter from Hopie announcing her intended marriage.
September 6th.—Hopie married at Kirklands to Thomas Ogilvie of Chesters.
Chesters is in the immediate neighbourhood of Kirklands, and the friendship between Miss Reeve and Mr. Ogilvie was of many years' standing, though the determination to marry was rather sudden, and the engagement very short. Mr. Ogilvie was a man of good family and property, and though several years older than his bride, Reeve appears to have been very well satisfied; his relations with his son-in-law were always cordial, though the distance at which they lived restricted the intercourse, and the formed habits of both prevented anything like intimacy.
Amidst the political excitement and the family interest of the summer, the following comes in almost like the Fool in 'King Lear' or Caleb Balderstone in the 'Bride of Lammermoor.' It refers to a proposition—surely one of the strangest ever submitted to a publisher—which, in ordinary course, had been sent to Reeve for an opinion. And this is what Reeve wrote:—
To Mr. T. Norton Longman
Foxholes, August 24th.—Your correspondent is the coolest fellow I ever heard of. He not only proposes to complete Macaulay's 'Lays' by some new ones, but to re-edit and correct the original Lays, which, he says, 'are very irregular.' His own verses have not a spark of poetry or fire in them; they are mere trash, and he is an impertinent fellow.