TO THE SAME.

Somerleaze, December 7, 1878.

Here I am still, not having stirred so far as Wedinore diggings. . . . But I have been up to the top of Ben Knoll three days running, and only not a fourth because the wind blew so very hard; so you may guess that I am a bit better. I also sleep better o' nights, which I pass in a manner almost too comfortable in the balcony-room (December 8), though I can't say that I walk out much on the balcony.

I have sent you one or two things. National Morality1 seems to strike people. They say it is a pity that it is hidden in an American periodical. Yet U. S. A. is a fairly big bushel to be hidden in, and why did not some English editor ask me to write it, instead of the American? I have just sent off a Homeric article to Contemporary. I have also given my Greeks (and it is worth £50) a discourse for the Haveλλýviov2, which you shall have in course of time. (By this post I send you some more Manchester thunder.) Also at odds and ends of time I am doing a Norman Primer for Johnny. But my main work now is Historical Geography. I have been working away at the south-eastern peninsula. Just now I am fairly stuck in the mud of the Terra Dobroditri, just south of Danube's mouth, just ceded to Roumania. The chief thing to be made out about its history is that it is 'ganz dunkel.' So you see I am not altogether idle, though I don't get quite so much done as usual. I fear that I shall some day tumble out of the carriage; for it is written ἀνὴρ Συβαρίτης ἐξέπεσεν ἐξ ἅρματος. I feel like ἀνὴρ Evẞapirns when I get up by the fire, which I have kept up through the night and kindled up in the morning-that you can't do unless you live near the land 'quae parva Hibernia dicitur,' where there is turf, and the turf of that land is good and kindles up a very small spark-and have a cup of tea and two bits of bread and butter, a beginning of the day which is

1 Princeton Review for November, 1878.

2 The Panhellenic Review. The first number, which was published on March 1, 1879, contained an article by Freeman on 'The Present Position of the Greek Nation.'

not recorded of any Homeric hero. Altogether I am fairly sprack.

It was a wonderful time in Greece. I must not go there again till my voice is up again, or till I am allowed to use it; for I privately feel a very fair power of roaring; only they say I must not. So I declined invitations to Bristol and to Bradford of the Northumbrians, writing letters instead. I am all eager about Bristol now, that Friend Fry-you met him last year-should get in.

CHAPTER IX.

BROKEN HEALTH. HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUs. THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1880. TOURS IN FRANCE AND ITALY AND VISIT TO DALMATIA. PUBLICATION OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY. PLACED ON ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. VISIT TO AMERICA. CORRESPONDENCE.

A.D. 1879-1882.

THE principal literary works upon which Freeman was engaged during 1879, in addition to the letters and articles which he wrote on the Eastern Question, were Historical Geography, the History of the Reign of William Rufus, and an article on the Goths for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But it was a year in which he was much hindered by broken health. His nights were often so much disturbed by violent fits of coughing and attacks of gout, that he was exhausted in the morning and drowsy during the day. 'Stayed in doors for gasping,' 'walked little, coughed much,' 'slept little, coughed much,' 'puffed and gasped,' are frequent entries in his diary about this time. 'I hobble mightily,' he says in one of his letters written in April, 1879, 'and sometimes yell withal. I am done something to with bran. I am sure I am like the griffin who had the gout in his left claw. I was taken out this morning to bask in the sun as a cat.' Nevertheless, he read and wrote

on an average seven hours a day, and from time to time he made journeys to places which he wanted to see in connexion with his History of William Rufus. It was mainly for this purpose that he travelled in Normandy in June and July, 1879, accompanied by the Rev. T. Fowler and Mr. James Parker and his son. In the course of this tour he visited Argentan, Alençon, Séez, Le Mans, Mortagne, Dreux, Evreux, Lisieux, Jumiège, Joinville, and Duclair. His unflagging interest in everything that he wanted to see, and his determination to see everything which had a bearing upon his work, beguiled him sometimes into excursions on foot to which his strength was unequal, and his companions had occasionally great difficulty in getting him on to his destination or back to the place from which they started. When thoroughly tired, he became as helpless, and almost as unmanageable, as a wayward child. On one occasion he sat down on the steps of a small village restaurant, and declared that he could not possibly go any further, and should put up there for the night; but after a little food he was persuaded to make an effort, and succeeded in reaching the place for which they were making. And it was wonderful how often, after a fatiguing day, he would revive in the evening, and sit up to a late hour in the night, writing long letters or parts of his history.

At the end of October, 1879, he made a short tour in France, accompanied by his wife, visiting Pontoise, Gisors, Chaumont, Gournay, Neuchatel, and other places connected with the history of William Rufus. In April, 1880, after a visit at my house, I accompanied him on an expedition of 'castle stalking' as he called it, with a view to this same history, in Sussex and part of Kent. We began with Arundel and worked our way

eastward to Tonbridge, where I left him to be joined by Mr. Parker. Our first day was a long one, as, besides Arundel castle and church, we visited the churches of Broadwater, Sompting, and Old and New Shoreham. We had to sleep at Brighton, a place which he thoroughly detested, saying that it might have been a very nice place in the days of Brighthelm, but that it was a very nasty place now. He was excessively tired, and when he had climbed two flights of stairs to his room, he flung himself with many groans on the bed, and declared that he could not and would not leave it, even to take any food. At such times he had to be treated with a mixture of sympathy and firmness like a child. He presently yielded to the behests of his 'guardian,' as he was pleased to call me, and came down stairs, and after a hearty tea, which was the kind of meal he liked best, he became quite cheerful, and started next morning with renewed vigour for another long day, which was spent at Lewes and Pevensey.

In July of the same year he did more 'castle stalking' in the north of England, where he stayed with his friend, Mr. Fowler, at Durham, and met Mr. Hodgkin at Newcastle, a meeting which was the beginning of a warm friendship with that learned historian.

He rejoiced greatly at the accession of Mr. Gladstone to power as Prime Minister after the General Election in March, 1880, but his satisfaction was mingled with some vexation that there was no Liberal candidate for Mid Somerset, and that he himself had not been invited to stand for any constituency. I have no one to vote for,' he says in a letter to Mr. Pinder, and no one has voted for me. I have been doing more hill-climbing, and am yearning to come forth in the sight of men,