when they run upon the Downs, hunting fossils, and clambering, is indeed
very great. Henry flatters himself that he shall some time or other have
the pleasure of exhibiting his collection to Cousin Sophy, and rehearses
frequently in the character of showman. Dr. Darwin has been so good as
to send him several fossils, etc., with their names written upon them,
and he is every day adding to his little stock of _larning._ There is a
very sensible man here who has also made him presents of little things
which he values much, and he begins to _mess_ a great deal with gums,
camphor, etc. He will at least never come under Dr. Darwin's definition
of a fool. "A fool, Mr. Edgeworth, you know, is a man who never tried an
experiment in his life." My father tells me that Henry has acquired a
taste for improving himself, and that all he has now to fear is my taste
for improving him.

We went the other day to see a collection of natural curiosities at a
Mr. Broderip's, of Bristol, which entertained us very much. My father
observed he had but very few butterflies, and he said, "No, sir, a
circumstance which happened to me some time ago, determined me never to
collect any more butterflies. I caught a most beautiful butterfly,
thought I had killed it, and ran a pin through its body to fasten it to
a cork: a _fortnight_ afterward I happened to look in the box where I
had left it, and I saw it writhing in agony: since that time I have
never destroyed another."

My father has just returned from Dr. Darwin's, where he has been nearly
three weeks: they were extremely kind, and pressed him very much to take
a house in or near Derby for the summer. He has been, as Dr. Darwin
expressed it, "breathing the breath of life into the brazen lungs of a
clock" which he had made at Edgeworthstown as a present for him. He saw
the first part of Dr. Darwin's _Botanic Garden_; L900 was what his