I have to dine in Oxford on Saturday, 10th May, and shall be there on Sunday the 11th. I hope that you will be in Oxford on that day and that we shall meet.
Et Fredericus de Cantebrigia essoniavit se de malo lecti, et essoniator dixit quod habuit languorem. Set quia essonium non jacet in breui de trampagio consideratum est quod summoneatur et quod sit in misericordia pro falso essonio suo. Postea uenit et defendit omnem defaltam et sursisam et dicit quod non debet ad hoc breve respondere quia non tenetur ire in trampagio nisi tantum quando dominus capitalis suus eat in persona sua propria nec vult nec debet ire cum ballivo vel preposito, et ipse et omnes antecessores sui semper a conquestu Anglie usque nunc habuerunt et habent talem libertatem, et de hoc ponit se super patriam, etc.
Revera predictus F. seisitus fuit de uno frigore valde damnando. Judicium--Recuperet se ipsum.
15, BROOKSIDE, CAMBRIDGE. _12 Nov. 1887._
Very many thanks to you for a copy of your book on "Torts"--I am already deep in it and am reading it with delight. You will believe that coming from me this is not an empty phrase, for you will do me the justice of believing that I can find a good book of law very delightful. I hope that it may be as great a success as "Contracts"--I can hardly wish you better. I now see some prospect of getting the Law of Torts pretty well studied by the best of the undergraduates. For weeks I have been in horrible bondage to my lectures--Stephen's chapters about the Royal Prerogatives and so forth--I speak of the Stephen of the Commentaries--are a terrible struggle: when one is set to lecture on them three days a week one practically has to write a book on constitutional law against time.
I cannot, alas, be at the Selden meeting on Monday, for I have undertaken to audit some accounts.
With many more thanks I rest Sectator tuus set minus sufficiens.
15, BROOKSIDE, CAMBRIDGE. _12 June, 1887._
"Cuius linguam ignorabant"--I feel now the full force of these words--I am in tenebris exterioribus, and there is stridor dencium; but I heartily congratulate you upon having finished your book[13], and thank you warmly for the copy of it that you sent me and for the kind words that you wrote upon the outside. Also I can just make out my name in the Preface and am very proud to see it there. Also I have read the footnotes and they are enough to show me that this is a great book, destined in course of time to turn the current of English and German learning.