ill-fated rising of General Torrijos against the Spanish Government, that protean nightmare which, in one form or another of bigotry and oppression, has ridden that unfortunate country up to a very recent time, when civil war has again interfered with apparently little prospect of any better result.  My distress at receiving such unexpected news from my brother was aggravated by his forbidding me to write to him or speak of his plans and proceedings to any one.  This concealment, which would have been both difficult and repugnant to me, was rendered impossible by the circumstances under which his letter reached me, and we all bore together, as well as we could, this severe disappointment and the cruel anxiety of receiving no further intelligence from John for a considerable time.  I was bitterly grieved by this letter, which clearly indicated that the sacred profession for which my brother had begun to prepare himself, and in which we had hoped to see him ere long honorably and usefully laboring, was as little likely to be steadily pursued by him as the legal career which he had renounced for it.  Richard Trench brought home a knowledge of the Spanish tongue which has given to his own some beautiful translations of Calderon’s masterpieces; and his early crusade for the enfranchisement of Spain has not militated against the well-deserved distinction he has achieved in the high calling to which he devoted himself.  With my brother, however, the case was different.  This romantic expedition canceled all his purposes and prospects of entering the Church, and Alfred Tennyson’s fine sonnet, addressed to him when he first determined to dedicate himself to the service of the temple, is all that bears witness to that short-lived consecration:  it was poetry, but not prophecy.

                                        MANCHESTER, September 3, 1830. 
     MY DEAREST H——­,

I received you letter and the pretty Balbriggan stockings, for which I thank you very much, quite safely.  I have not been able to put pen to paper till now, and even now do not know whether I can do more than just tell you that we have heard nothing further whatever from my brother.  In his letter to me he said that he would write home whenever he could do so safely, but that no letter of ours would reach him; and, indeed, I do not now know where he may be.  From the first moment of hearing this intelligence, which has amazed us all so much, I have felt less miserable than I could have thought possible under the circumstances; my mind, I think, has hardly taken hold of the truth of what has come so unexpectedly upon me.  The very impossibility of relieving one’s suspense, I suppose, compels one not to give way to its worst suggestions, which may, after all, be unfounded.  I cannot communicate with him, and must wait patiently till he can write again; he is in God’s hand, and I hope and pray that he may be guided and protected.  My great anxiety is to keep