Glenlair, 26th April 1850.
 

As I ought to tell you of our departure from Edinburgh and arrival here, so I ought to tell you of many other things  besides. Of things pertaining to myself there are these:—The tutor of Peterhouse has booked me, and I am  booked for Peterhouse, but will need a little more booking before I can write Algebra like a book.
I suppose I must go through Wrigley's problems and Paley's Evidences in the same sort of way, and be able to   translate when required Eurip. Iph. in Aulid. In the meantime I have my usual superfluity of plans.

 1. Classics—Eurip.  for Cambridge. (I hope no Latin or Greek verses except for honours.) Greek   Testament, Epistles, for my own behoof, and perhaps some of Cicero De Officiis or something else for   Latin.

  2. Mathematics—Wrigley's Problems, and Trig. for Cambridge; properties of the Ellipsoid and other solids for   practice with Spher. Trig. Nothing higher if I can help it.

  3. Nat. Phil.—Simple mechanical problems to produce that knack of solving problems which Prof. Forbes has   taught me to despise. Common Optics at length; and for experimental philosophy, twisting and bending certain   glass and metal rods, making jellies, unannealed glass, and crystals, and dissecting eyes—and playing Devils.

  4. Metaphysics—Kant's Kritik of Pure Reason in German, read with a determination to make it agree with Sir   W. Hamilton.

 5. Moral Philosophy—Metaphysical principles of moral philosophy. Hobbes' Leviathan, with his moral   philosophy, to be read as the only man who has decided opinions and avows them in a distinct way. To examine   the first part of the seventh chapter of Matthew in reference to the moral principles which it supposes, and   compare with other passages. But I question if I shall be able to overtake all these things, although those of different kinds may well be used as alternate studies.

 I read in Edinburgh Wilson's Poems to see what he used to be like, and how much he had improved since then.  Did you finish Festus? I had only two days to read it, so that I skipped part of the long speech and a good   deal of the jollification, which I think the dullest part of the book.  The opening, makes one think that it is to be an imitation of the book of Job, but you soon see that you have to do   with a dreamy mortal without a profession, but vain withal, and a hero among women, a jolly companion of some   men, admired of students for talking of things which he knows not, nor can know, having a so-called philosophy, an intuitive science, and an underived religion, and with all these not perfect, but needing more expanded views of  the [136] folly of strict virtue and outward decency, of the magnificence, nay, of the duty of sinning, and of the   identity of virtue and vice, and of all opposites. He takes for his friend one whom Wilson calls a very poor devil,   who has wonderful mechanical powers, but never attempts but once the supposed object of his visit to earth,    namely, temptation. He takes a more rational view of affairs than Festus in general, but is so extremely refined  from ordinary devils, that the only passage sufficiently characteristic for ordinary rapid readers to recognise is the  sermon to the crowd, as the speech in Hell is quite raw. He has not such an absolute and intuitive sense of things   as Festus, and does not change so much according, to his company. He seems a sincere, good-natured, unselfish    devil; while Festus is very changeable, solemn when alone, jolly when with the jolly, drunk with the drunk, open    with Lucifer, reserved in good company, amorous with all women, talkative and serious with all angels and saints,    stern towards the unfortunate, and in all his affections altogether selfish.

 The book is said to have a plan, but no plot. The plan is an exposition of the state of a man's mind after having   gone through German metaphysics. It was one destitute of notions, and has now been convinced that all these   notions are one and the same. It is neither meat, nor drink, nor rank, nor money, nor any common thing he wants:  "he is sure it isn't," and he is sore troubled for want of some great thing to do; and when L——r starts into   proximity he is the very being he wanted to speak to; "he knew who it would be," and recognises him at once. An  opportunity is thus given for showing two ways of thinking about things, and therein lies the matter of the book.   This may be seen in L——r's sermon and Festus' prayer. To turn and get out of the confusion of this letter, pray    let me hear your opinion of the book. It may be considered thus:—-

1. People read the book and wonder, why ?

 It is not read for the sake of the story—that is plain; nor for the clearness with which certain principles are  developed, nor for the consistency of the book, nor for the [137] variety of the characters; there must therefore be    something overpoweringly attractive to hold you to the book. Some say he has fine thoughts, sufficient to set up   fifty poets; to which some may answer, Where are they? Read it in a spirit of cold criticism, and they vanish. There  is not one that is not either erroneous, absurd, German, common, or Daft. Where lies the beauty? In the reader's     mind. The author has evidently been thinking when he wrote it, and that not in words, but inwardly. The   benevolent reader is compelled to think too, and it is so great a relief to the reader to get out of wordiness that he    can put up with insanity, absurdity, profanity, and even inanity, if by so doing he can get into rapport with one    who is so transcendental, and yet so easy to follow, as the poet. When Galileo set his [lamp] a-swinging by    breathing on it, his power lay in the relation between the interval of his breaths and the time of vibration; so in     Festus the mind that begins to perceive that his train of thoughts is that of the poem is readily made to follow on.   There are some passages where one breaks loose, especially the rhyming description of the subpœnaing of the    planets, and the notion of the angel of the earth giving Festus a pair of bracelets, and the way in which F. improves   his mind by travel

. . . Beauty is attributed to an object when the subject anticipates pleasure in it. A true pleasure is a consciousness   of the right action of the faculty or function or power. Happiness is the integral of pleasure, as wisdom is of   knowledge. . . . Don't take all this about Festus for truth, as I don't believe much of it, and I'll maybe tell you a   new story if you tell me one.

What of St. Peter, as compared with the Keys and with Bob?