Autograph letter signed : London, to [John Fergus], 1845 July 17.

Regretting that he is unable to accept an invitation to visit Fergus in the Scottish Highlands, as his current research with the letters of Oliver Cromwell keep him in London at present; noting that he plans to go to Scotland, but doubts that he will "get farther North than my good old Mother's house in Annandale"; discussing family and friends, including horseback riding in the company of [Arthur] Helps, Mrs. Carlyle's impending visit to Lancashire and Wales ("My Wife goes to Lancashire on Tuesday; for some visits there and in Wales. This Town is emptying fast, thank God;--Peel rapidly flinging his Bills overboard. In solitude, if it be duller, I shall get the faster thro' my work."), and Fergus's sisters, who have all been in London save Mrs. Royd, who has been suffering from an affliction of the eye; reflecting on poverty in Scotland ("Scotch Pauperism generally, and Highland in particular, does already attract disgrace to the country; and will attract still worse things by and by, if not looked to; which there is little chance of its being. My heart is sick to think of these things. As Dr [Thomas] Arnold once told me, "One has no resource but to put the thought of them away.").