to descant upon.  Far from me be it (dii avertant) to look a gift story in the mouth, or cruelly to surmise (as those who doubt the plunge of Curtius) that the inseparate conjuncture of man and beast, the centaur-phenomenon that staggerd all Dunstable, might have been the effect of unromantic necessity, that the horse-part carried the reasoning, willy nilly, that needs must when such a devil drove, that certain spiral configurations in the frame of Thomas Westwood unfriendly to alighting, made the alliance more forcible than voluntary.  Let him enjoy his fame for me, nor let me hint a whisper that shall dismount Bellerophon.  Put case he was an involuntary martyr, yet if in the fiery conflict he buckled the soul of a constant haberdasher to him, and adopted his flames, let Accident and He share the glory!  You would all like Thomas Westwood.

[Illustration:  Hand drawn sketch]

How weak is painting to describe a man!  Say that he stands four feet and a nail high by his own yard measure, which like the Sceptre of Agamemnon shall never sprout again, still you have no adequate idea, nor when I tell you that his dear hump, which I have favord in the picture, seems to me of the buffalo—­indicative and repository of mild qualities, a budget of kindnesses, still you have not the man.  Knew you old Norris of the Temple, 60 years ours and our father’s friend, he was not more natural to us than this old W. the acquaintance of scarce more weeks.  Under his roof now ought I to take my rest, but that back-looking ambition tells me I might yet be a Londoner.  Well, if we ever do move, we have encumbrances the less to impede us:  all our furniture has faded under the auctioneer’s hammer, going for nothing like the tarnishd frippery of the prodigal, and we have only a spoon or two left to bless us.  Clothed we came into Enfield, and naked we must go out of it.  I would live in London shirtless, bookless.  Henry Crabb is at Rome, advices to that effect have reach’d Bury.  But by solemn legacy he bequeath’d at parting (whether he should live or die) a Turkey of Suffolk to be sent every succeeding Xmas to us and divers other friends.  What a genuine old Bachelor’s action!  I fear he will find the air of Italy too classic.  His station is in the Hartz forest, his soul is Bego’ethed.  Miss Kelly we never see; Talfourd not this half-year; the latter flourishes, but the exact number of his children, God forgive me, I have utterly forgotten, we single people are often out in our count there.  Shall I say two?  One darling I know they have lost within a twelvemonth, but scarce known to me by sight, and that was a second child lost.  We see scarce anybody.  We have just now Emma with us for her holydays; you remember her playing at brag with Mr. Quillinan at poor Monkhouse’s!  She is grown an agreeable young woman; she sees what I write, so you may understand me with limitations.  She was our inmate for a twelvemonth, grew natural to us, and then they told us it was best for her to go out as a Governess, and so she went out, and we were only two of us, and our pleasant house-mate is changed to an occasional visitor.  If they want my sister to go out (as they call it) there will be only one of us.  Heaven keep us all from this acceding to Unity!