Low in waiting for you, and not disposed to be very severe on you for the disappointment of a day. My wife and daughter beg earnestly to be united with me in every expression of kind regard and pleasing remembrance, and in again offering you my cordial thanks for your delightful visit to us; (but O how short it was!) and requesting a place in your prayers, I ever remain, with most sincere esteem, my dear Sir, "Your most faithful "And warmly attached brother, From the Rev. Mr. Sprey to Bishop Hobart. MY DEAR SIR, 66 Oxford, Jan. 26, 1824. "It is, I assure you, a great disappointment to me, to find that I shall not have the pleasure of meeting you in Oxford, and personally introducing you to many of my friends here, who will be very happy to render you any civility in their power. I shall leave Oxford myself this morning, having indispensable public engagements in Birmingham to-morrow; but my friend, Dr. Copleston, the Provost of Oriel College, has requested me to write to you and say from him, that it will give him very great pleasure to receive you and show you the University; and he hopes you will take a bed at his house during your stay. He will be in Oxford till the end of this week, but on the following Monday he will be necessarily absent until the Friday following. If you can so contrive your visit as to And I suit this arrangement of his time, he will, I know, be most happy to hear from you that you will accept of his hospitalities. And I very much hope that you will also do me the favour, if possible, of so contriving your visit as to fall in with the Provost's time. He will not be absent from the University at all during the term, with the exception of those few days from the first to the fifth of February. "I am rejoiced to hear that you will still allow me to expect the pleasure of seeing you at Birmingham before you quit this country; it would have been a sensible mortification to me to have had no opportunity of showing how sincerely you are respected and esteemed by, "I sent yesterday from Mr. Cadell's, twelve copies of my Sermons on Sacred Literature, and of Mr. Forster's Discourses, which I hope you have received; ten copies of the several books are respectively inscribed for the ten American Bishops, each bishop's parcel being separately made up. There is an eleventh parcel directed to you, containing two copies of each book; these I beg you will have the kindness to cause to be deposited in any two public ecclesiastical libraries that you may think fit. Enclosed is my ordination card. The course is meagre enough, but sufficient to try whether candidates for orders have made tolerable proficiency. It may hereafter be extended. "I wish you every happiness and comfort in your continental tour, and hope for the pleasure of again meeting you early in June. "I am, my dear Bishop, "With sincere respect and esteem, "Your faithful and obedient servant, "JOHN LIMERICK." From the same to the same. "MY DEAR BISHOP, "March 26, 1824. "I beg to return my best thanks for your kind and valuable present. Your volumes I shall read with much interest, and I trust not without some profit. The acquaintance and friendship which have commenced here, will, I am hopeful, be continued after you have crossed the Atlantic; and it will at all times give me sincere pleasure to hear of the progress and prosperity of the Episcopal Church in America. "Had I imagined you would remain in town till to-morrow morning, I should have requested the favour of your company that day to meet a few friends, whom I think you would like to see: I hope I am not now too late. "Any hints respecting my ordination course will be thankfully received by, "My dear Bishop, "Yours very faithfully, "JOHN LIMERICK." From Bishop Hobart to Mrs. Hobart. “MY DEAREST WIFE, 66 "Rome, May 29, 1824. "I have seen a great deal in a few weeks in Italy, which almost every traveller considers it the summit of his ambition to visit and to explore. In most respects my expectations are realized-in some disappointed. The climate and the sky are delightful, and the scenery unites in a high degree the grand and the beautiful. But this last has to my eye a most cardinal defect. It wants the farm house, surrounded by out-houses and barns, indicating an industrious and happy yeomanry. From the top of the Catskill mountains I have looked down at one view on one hundred or more neat and highly cultivated farms; from the top of the Appennines you only discover walled towns, while the plains, rich as they are in verdure, want that variety and beauty, and that moral charm, which are excited by a prospect of a similar description in our own country. In the famous Campania Felix around Naples, you may travel a dozen miles and not meet with a single house. The people live in towns, from which they go out in the day to cultivate the fields. These are rich and fertile, almost beyond description; but even here I became tired. I passed for miles and miles through a succession of fields with small trees, up which twined the grape vines, which were led like net-work from one tree to another. This for a little while was beautiful, but I often longed for a sight of some clover, and timothy, and grass fields, such as at this season render our country so pleasant. Nor have they orchards, except of the olive, which is a very ugly tree. The verdure is, however, most delightful, and the wild flowers along the roads and in the fields numerous and beautiful beyond description. Sometimes there are plantations of the orange and the lemon. ***. "You must tell Mr. Berrian that since I came on his route his book has been my constant companion. In this city, from various unavoidable circumstances, I have seen but little; but in the kingdom of Naples I believe I have gone beyond him. I made a most interesting excursion through a country, for a considerable distance more picturesque than any 1 have seen, to Pæstum, an ancient city, of which nothing is left except a few of the gates, a small portion of the walls, and two large temples, and another building, supposed to be for civil purposes, which are considered as the finest remains of antiquity in Italy. I also visited twice the Camaldoli hill and hermitage back of Naples, from which there is a prospect said to be the second in the world. *** "Your affectionate husband, "Be assured that I feel deeply sensible of the kindness which you have always shown me in considering me as one of those friends whom you have honoured by sending them copies of your valuable |