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Is the (new) house dry? Settlements being prepared re forthcoming marriage.

PE thinking of priesthood - advises against Canterbury because of the danger of invasion and the plague of troops - Oxford or Cambridge the only provincial situations which would thoroughly suit PE.

PE a candidate for the preachership of Lincoln's Inn (and several other letters re canvassing and counting votes). NB Lincoln's Inn not mentioned by Hallam in any of these letters - see note at 68 Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn.

PE likely to separate from a Miss L, because of her renewal of Hymeneal chains. Presumably a reference to Harriet Lewin, subsequently married to George Grote - a scandal briefly referred to in PE's entry in the DNB, and further described in the Elizabethan, May 1897, p.298.

Advises circumspection on the matter to which PE alludes. The allusiveness and circumlocutions of the language may point to the Harriet Lewin affair.

PE and a Mr Collins have been rivals in love for a young lady - a clandestine amour and a scandal in the neighbourhood. Greek is the chief point of resemblance between PE and Mr Collins - could Mr Collins therefore be a pseudonym for George Grote? HH wonders how the secret got out - did the 'young Lombard' let it slip to exonerate himself, or did the lady's family, with whom PE has quarrelled, do so out of a spirit of vengeance?

Follow-up from last - because of the recent publicity given to the affair, it is too soon for PE to be paying addresses to another woman.

George Grote will not renew his addresses to the lady.

Congratulations on termination of affair. Further remarks upon Miss L and Mr Collins ('the other business'). Mr Collins may suspect PE of indulging in ridicule at his expense. HH agrees with PE that no one can be glad to have been involved - and Miss L has lost an eminent banker of Threadneedle Street (a reference to George Grote).

Mr Collins has remarked upon PE's age - HH advises against retaliation. Violent love is neither reasonable nor desirable at PE's time of life - and a calculated marriage is a risk, since the necessary sacrifices are not always compensated for.