My dear Nicholson,

        You do not seem to know that the Record has been making a fuss this last month about the Bishop of Oxford's public declaration that he never requested my brother to suppress Tract 90. All he did was to suggest that "the publication of the Tracts be discontinued," which meant that there was to be no No. 91. The Bishop indignantly disclaims the idea that my brother had been disobedient.

.  .  .  .  .

        I am, for a week past, resting from Berber, having written to M. d'Avezac in Paris to ask whether a report I heard is true, that he is preparing a dictionary of it. I have ordered an Amharic grammar, too, and want to compare them, but I abhor the Ethiopic type! . . . I cannot get Kitto to tell me whether the sale of the Cyclopædia is satisfactory.

.  .  .  .  .

        I have lately spoken at a meeting of the Friends of Ireland, and have sent to the Guardian newspaper here, in reply to their demand that I would specify some plan, a paper on Fixity of Tenure for the cottiers of Ireland. I feel no doubt that this must ere long become the great Irish question, of even more interest than the ecclesiastical one. . . .