“My dear Mother,— . . . My life goes on in the old way—to which I am now quite accustomed, and in which I believe I may be as happy as I am capable of being anywhere, unless when certain homeward-formed recollections obtrude on the privacy. My summer sojourn here has, I hope, been very useful to me. I have acquired the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese languages; the two former so as to read with the utmost ease, and the last more slightly, only from the want of books; and I am now busily engaged in Greek and Latin for my examination. I have already read everything which I mean to take up, but must do this often before I venture. . . . Who is likely to succeed Gleig here? That gentleman has embarked into the military life, by grasping at a pair of colours in the 3rd garrison battalion, stationed at the Cove of Cork.—Believe me, as ever, your affectionate dutiful son,
