I remember once listening in our summer-house, upon St. Swithun’s feast, while my dear brother-in-law disputed with Mr. Grylls upon action and contemplation—­which of them was the properer end of man.  I thought then that each of them, though they talked up and down and at large, was in truth defending his own temperament:  and, because I loved them both, that neither needed defending.  For my own part, the small daily cares of Constantine have stolen away from me, not altogether unhappily, the time of choosing, and I ask now but to follow that counsel of the Apostle wherewith my master Walton closed his book, and “Study to be Quiet.”

G.A.

[1] Here—­for it scarcely appears in the narrative—­let me say that my sister was an exemplary wife and, while fate spared her, a devoted mother.  I knew my brother-in-law for a great man, incapable of a thought or action less than kingly, and I worshipped him (as Ben Jonson would say) “on this side idolatry”; but if the Constantines have a fault, it is that they demand too much of life, and exact it somewhat too much as a matter of course.  I have heard this fault attributed to other great men.—­G.A.

FINIS