Geneva. Arrived 31st August, having left Brussels on 31st July. Suggests that his nieces trace his route on a map (number of nights in each town is given - Frankfurt is the only very thriving place he has seen on the continent). Description of continental roads, drivers and inns. Germans not prosperous but like fresh air (unlike the French and Italians), and the roads are good and the food is cheap. Geneva is a hole, but Switzerland is beautiful. Heidelberg a gem - wishes Blucher had put barrels of gunpowder under the Louvre in return for Louis XIV destroying the Elector's palace. Likes the Swiss - very like the Germans. French proverb - one must be either a hammer or an anvil - the French are hammers, the Germans are anvils. Country around Liege most reminded him of England. A monument at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine - inscribed by the French on the way to Russia in 1812, and by the Russians on the way to Paris in 1814.
Two letters are at Stafford Row from PE to his brother, who has gone to Godalming (to examine Norman remains). Since one letter follows the other by a day, he wonders if he should forward them. His mother is still at Ealing, and has been for five weeks.
Blomfield a common acquaintance. Thanks PE for the promise of some comments on his Hippolytus. Thanks PE for promising to contribute to the new journal proposed by M and B. Invites PE to dinner the following week. Confesses to being the anonymous author of the article in the Quarterly Review referring to plagiarism - admits to being wrong, both in his then conclusions and in having written thus. Youthful devotion to Porson to blame. (v. 143 & 144, & Horsfall pp455ff on whole matter.)
Paris mss of Aesch. Review of Porson Hecuba in Edinburgh Review attributed to PE - B notes coincidence with his 2nd ed of PV, and hopes PE will not think he is poaching; also chides PE in following Brunck and Butler (Samuel Butler, HM of Shrewsbury).
Various textual observations. Jokes re low cost of foreign Greek books. Hermann's views on Porson - he has sent B some books; B hopes that Hermann doesn't know that B wrote a review of his Photius in the Edinburgh Review.
Inadequacy of own work. Sorry to hear of PE's change of plan re Sophocles. Praise for first sheet of OT (sent by Collingwood). PE should assert claim to emendations etc. which have been forestalled in Erdfurt's edition - should also publish Aj. Or OC, neither of which Erdfurt has yet done. G. has just been ordained.
