“I wish most heartily that I had been in my own green land to welcome you. It delights me, however, to see (what I could not have doubted) that the warm hearts of my countrymen have shown that they know how to value you. How I envy those who will have the glory of showing you and Killarney to each other! No two of nature’s productions, I will say, were ever more worthy of meeting. If the Kenmares should be your Ciceroni, pray tell them what I say of their Paradise, with my best regards and greetings. I received your kind message, through Newton,* last year, that ‘if I did not come and see you, before you died, you would appear to me afterwards.’ Be assured that, as I am all for living apparitions, I shall take care and have the start of you, and would have done it this very year, I rather think, only for your Irish movements.
“Present my best regards to your son-in-law, and believe me, my dear Sir Walter (though we have met, I am sorry to say, but once in our lives),
