Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Marked 'Private and Confidential'. Interested to hear about Paul, and 'about the reading room and clericalism'. Wants to write 'a few lines, between which' Robert and Elizabeth may read; has seen Crompton Davies who was 'much alive' to his suggestions, and will communicate them to Withers, that [Florence Trevelyan's] will should be proved and amount and whereabouts of the personal property ascertained. Asks Robert to find out whether Withers is working on this, and who the Trustees now are. Does not understand about the twenty thousand lire; perhaps however information has by now been given to Withers about the property in which Robert and George have an interest. Notes in a postscript that he has had three letters from the Poet Laureate [Alfred Austin], who 'sounds a jolly old chap'; also asks whether Robert knew that the Callias whose 'fine fragments' appear in Bergk ["Poetae Lyrici Graeci"] was the 'coryphoeus of the thirty tyrants [of Athens in the last days of the Peloponnesian War]'; there is an 'evident allusion' to his lines on the cottabus in the story of the death of Theramenes, but Sir George has never seen this mentioned.
Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth. - Glad Robert was not 'over burdened' to receive his own books [see 12/250]. Amusing about Julian's 'hero-worship of [George] Stephenson'; agrees that he was a 'hero'. Glad Julian learns what he is interested in by heart, and well; thinks quality more important than quantity; he himself 'ruined' what he supposes was a good memory by having to learn too much, and has tried to improve himself recently by learning a few select pieces. Turned seventy eight years old today, and has finished reading Thucydides, having begun reading it on 28 January; agrees with [Henry] Jackson that the 'account of the scoundrelly plot of Pisander, and the Whig counter Revolution of Theramenes, is equal to most things in history'; does not see how anyone can doubt it is by Thucydides.