Autograph letter signed : London, to Mr. Gray, 1848 Sept. 15.

The linen has arrived, beautifully packed and in fabric superb. "Some of the tablecloths would cover their room in place of their table but they are a handsome family appendage & I know in Scotland they have more magnificent ideas than we have in England because one London dinner costs as much as would comfortably dine our friends, to the same number in Scotland every day for a week--" If they will let him know the cost, he would be glad to have it because he always has "money of John in my hand, to settle accounts for him immediately." As to George, he would not like to influence Mr. Gray against his own judgment. He wrote as he did because he though that, for many years, the course chalked out for George ("with our own sound judgement") had been law, and he feared that the sudden shift had been suggested by others who found it more easy to advise than to help. Mr. Gray should do what he thinks best "regardless of what anyone says; but to prevent disappointment he though it only honest to explain at once that he could not help. Therefore, to place matters in their true light, he ran the risk of hurting feelings. He too well remembers the false promises held out to him when he left his Edinburgh home. "Had I foreseen the true state of things--I should have paused--" His recent letters should not be misconstrued. Not one of his three letters has been in any way affected by Mr. Gray's altered circumstance: "I should even value you more as a working Lawyer of £400 a year in old Bowerswell than with a Railroad property of £400 a year in your Grand House--": it was a great mistake to pull down old Bowerswell. He has been much more plain with one of M. Domecq's nephews--the Rothchild of the family: he would not receive him at Denmark Hill at all and did not "even take the trouble to come from Salisbury to London to see him." On the other hand, "the person most frequently dining with us is only Actuary or Clerk in a Life Office--Harrison, & this solely because his literary turn makes his company agreeable to John." [P.S.] "I am sorry to inflict all this upon you but letters are so constantly miscontrued from the haste or inability with which they are written that they require volumes to explain."