Early in October, Reeve, with his wife—Miss Reeve—was staying in Scotland—set out for Geneva, and, travelling by easy stages through Antwerp, Luxembourg, Metz—'a very pretty, attractive town,' not yet brought into vulgar repute by its siege and surrender in the Franco-German war—Nancy, Strasbourg, and Bale, arrived on the 12th. The weather was cold and wintry; and, after a short stay at Geneva, they went on to Marseilles, where Reeve's uncle, Philip Taylor, the founder of the 'Forges et Chantiers,' was still living, a hale old man of eighty, with his wife, 'some seven years younger, and not at all old in figure, look, and voice.' Then to Cannes, which was coming fast into note—'building going on with great activity, and ground fetching higher prices every year'; and, after an excursion to Nice and Mentone, they turned northwards, were at Paris on November 6th, and reached home on the 10th. The Journal adds:—
January 6th, 1868.—Went on a visit to Loseley Park, then occupied by the Thomson Hankeys—the old seat of Sir Thomas More. Mlle. Ernestine declaimed there.
From Lord Westbury
January 14th.—Pray, if you can, give us a paper with some variety, and not wholly composed of dreary Indian appeals, the hearing of which always reminded me of the toil of Pharaoh's charioteers, when they drave heavily their wheelless chariots in the deep sands of the Red Sea.
Who is it that has dug so deep into the Talmud, and written that remarkable paper, [Footnote: 'The Talmud,' Quarterly Review, October 1867.] for which, a century ago, he would have been the subject of a writ De haeretico comburendo?
Hinton St. George, January 16th.—Your arrangement is a very good one, but, for fear of accident, I will certainly leave this place on Monday, February 3rd, so that you may count on me for Tuesday if required. The gorge rises at the thought of being fed on curry, rice, and chutnee sauce for three weeks; I shall certainly contract a disease of the liver. If you can send us occasionally to sea on an Admiralty case, it will be a little relief. I have observed that petitions for prolongation of patents frequently occupy an (apparently) undue time. If there are any such, I think we may despatch them. I hope Lord Justice Cairns will use the days he gains for reducing the arrears in Chancery. I am much obliged to him for his kind expressions.
The best advice that his friends can give Rolt [Footnote: Sir John Rolt resigned in February 1868, and died in June 1871.] is to resign. It is the only chance of long life. Let him not be afraid of ennui from idleness. He has a great love of the country and country pursuits, and that is all-sufficient. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. And it is so much better to be a looker-on than an actor in life. Aristotle, in the last chapter of his 'Nicomachean Ethics,' sets himself to consider what can be the happiness of the gods; and he finds nothing in which he can put it but in contemplation. And it might be so, if it were still true. 'And God saw (contemplated) all that He had made, and behold it was very good.'
I thought it was an 'Ebrew Jew' that wrote the article entitled 'Talmud.' I have only read a few extracts. It is quite in keeping with the times that it should be in a Tory journal. The Conservatives have begun by being avowed reformers, and next they will be declared free-thinkers. This is the first step to their confession. Their great schoolmaster, Dizzy, gets his compatriot to publish this article. I am glad to hear from you that it is shallow; but novelty and originality now are nothing but the reproduction of forgotten things; and, to speak seriously, I thought it seemed a thing likely to lead many to some form or other of Arian opinions.
The following refers to a work recently published by Longmans. Mr. Longman had apparently suggested it as a fit subject for an article in the 'Review ':—
To Mr. T. Longman