Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/36

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. JULY 10, 1920. excluding all subjects from its recesses, though miles in extent. The palace a very grand piece of architecture in the rich style of a century ago contrasted by the gothic remains of Wolsey's magnificence." The pleasure grounds and park, a specimen of the stiff Dutch taste, and not bearing comparison with the best English manner. Beturned by a long and rather tiresome walk round the bend formed by the Thames. From Kingston to Richmond, a charming drive. Richmond Hill in high beauty. Thence to town, all dust, carriages, turnpikes, &c., underwent a sad humiliation, in Hyde Park, where our humble and dusty carriage and persons were engaged in a throng of all the great and gay folks at Kensington gardens. Reached Newington safe and sound, and gladly sat down again to home and comfort PRONEPOS. PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE PAPERS. V. Two OF DELANE'S WRITERS. A HITHERTO unknown leader-writer of Delane's can apparently be identified, as the following letter shows. The name of the Rev. Charles Peter Chretien, a fellow, like another of Delane's writers, the Rev. Thomas Mozley, Newman's brother-in-law, of Oriel College, Oxford, does not appear in Mr. Dasent's long list of Delane's contributors. In 1850, the year of the letter, he was a tutor in the college. To what extent he wrote for Delane must be inferred from the letter : Oriel, 18 April, 1850. MY DEAR SIR, Your parcel has reached me on a morning which has its occupation too fully marked out to leave me time for writing the article. I regret this : for I would gladly have taken my farewell of the " leaders " of The Times (as a writer) by a resume of the subject which I began with edu- cation. I have written to M>. Walter asking him definitely to accept my resignation. My health will not allow me to make (as I find by experience) any addition, desultory though it be, to my work in 'term ; and I find, inter alia, that I cannot make up my mind to limit my vacations by a definite engagement. I have to thank you, in the retrospect, for having supplied me Avitli so good a cast of subjects, and having judged so favourably of my attempts. Believe me, Very faithfully yours, CHARLES' P. CHRETIEN. In Mr. Dasent's ' Life,' there are several references to one of Delane's " most prolific leader-writers." Dr. Henry Annesley Wood- ham, who was born in 1813 and died .in 1875 at Cambridge, which had been his home for many years and where he was an honorary fellow of Jesus College. Wood- ham according to Delane's biographer "enjoyed the confidence of . his chief in a high degree." and contributed in one year no fewer than two hundred articles to the pa,per. Preserved in The Times office is the following letter from Woodham to the Editor. It is not dated, but as it mentions that the writer had beeji nearly forty years at Cambridge, it must have been written not long before his death : Friday. MY DEAR DELANE, Let me assure you, once for all, that among all the many men you have known in your life, there has not been one more competent to measure his own capacities, determine his own. wants, and appreciate in any respect his own position, than your present correspondent. In the matter before us, especially, no other human creature physician or layman, could have anything like the absolute perception of facts that I have, no other could form so good a judgment ; no other could have anything like so strong an interest, in seeing that the judgment was good. Not Paget himself, nor fifty !-'agets could advise me against my own conclusions ; indeed, he is far too clever a man to attempt such a thing. He listens to my opinions even in the measuring of drugs in his prescriptions : in the matter of my moving, he would not venture a word after he had heard such a case as I could put before him. Once more I say, leave it in my hands, I con- vince myself completely that your old friend and correspondent could not be in better. It is indeed for your private gratification that I add another word. As to Cambridge -, just remember that I have been here 40 years (come next summer) and that part of that time I never kept my bed one single day until the terrible illness I took at Hastings last year. Again, for nearly throe-fourths of that time I have been your daily correspondent how often have I missed a single day's work ? What did you say to me the other' day about the amount of work I had clone for the paper compared with the amount done by any other man since the paper began ? Up to the summer of last year I believe I was, for my age, one of the youngest and strongest men in the University, but we can't be young and strong for ever. I am, I think, four years your senior, an insignificant difference when I we first began, but a telling one now especially after a heavy sickness. I daresay rny last letter to you impressed you in this respect, but it was not intended to be in the least desponding only plain spoken and rational. I am not a bit nervous, nor a bit out of heart with my work, but if I suspect that the best of my days are gone, and that I cannot reasonably look forward to being what I was in times past, would anybody say I was mistaken ? Do you fancy a man can. be made young again by going to the South Coast or the North Foreland ? As to the present, I am better already, better by far, saving your presence, than I should have I been if I had gone afield in such weather as yesterday. In fact, I would have reported myself workable, except that if I had happened to break down again you might have very justly blamed me for not taking the rest that was offered. Moreover, as I have written two days