in a letter of Miss Barrett's which must have been written about
Christmas of either 1838 or 1839:--

'He [the bishop] was, however, at church on Christmas Day, and upon
Mr. Elliot's being mercifully inclined to omit the Athanasian Creed,
prompted him most episcopally from the pew with a "whereas;" and
further on in the Creed, when the benign reader substituted the
word _condemnation_ for the terrible one--"Damnation!" exclaimed the
bishop. The effect must have been rather startling.'

A slight acquaintance with the words of the Athanasian Creed will
suggest that the story had suffered in accuracy before it reached Miss
Barrett, who, of course, was unable to attend church, and whose own
ignorance on the subject may be accounted for by remembering that
she had been brought up as a Nonconformist. With a little correction,
however, the story may be added to the many others on record with
respect to 'Henry of Exeter.'

The following letter is shown, by the similarity of its contents
to the one which succeeds it, to belong to November 1839, when Miss
Barrett was entering on her second winter in Torquay.


_To Mrs. Martin_
Beacon Terrace, Torquay: November 24 [1839].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--Henrietta _shall not_ write to-day, whatever
she may wish to do. I felt, in reading your unreproaching letter
to her, as self-reproachful as anybody could with a great deal of
innocence (in the way of the world) to fall back upon. I felt sorry,