"Diodata, Geneva, July 14. 1816."
While engaged in preparing his new edition for the press, he was also
gaily dispensing the hospitalities of Newstead to a party of young
college friends, whom, with the prospect of so long an absence from
England, he had assembled round him at the Abbey, for a sort of
festive farewell. The following letter from one of the party, Charles
Skinner Matthews, though containing much less of the noble host
himself than we could have wished, yet, as a picture, taken freshly
and at the moment, of a scene so pregnant with character, will, I have
little doubt, be highly acceptable to the reader.