Dear M^r Darwin

My father thinks that the yellow original will have more interest for you than a copy, so I enclose it though I am afraid it will involve the trouble of sending it back— He says that B means boarder at Butler’s, ‘b’ which graces your name & others, boarder at “Mother Bromfield’s” & j boarder at Jeudwine’s²

I enclose a translation of the Plautus & with my father’s very kind remembrances & my own | Believe me | yrs very truly | Charles Crawley

Plautus. Mil Glor. Act II sc 2. l 47–59³

“Pray see yonder how he is standing his brow bent in anxious thought— He strikes his breast with his fingers. I suppose he intends to call out his wits from within— See now he turns away & leans with his left hand upon his thigh. with his right hand he is telling off the arguments on his fingers striking his right thigh   so laboriously do his gestures supply what he wants to do   now he’s snapped his fingers— he’s in a puzzle— He keeps changing his posture. See he shakes his head, he doesn’t like the plan he has hit upon   Whatever it is, he will not produce it in a crude state   he will send it out well digested   Now look he’s turned architect he has pillared his chin upon his hand   Bah! I certainly don’t like that style of architecture for I have heard that the ‘pillared chin’ is the characteristic of a barbarian poet who is never without two guards at his elbow the whole day long”

Notes say that the last three lines are an allusion to a Latin poet probably Naevius—⁴

also that putting the hand beneath the chin is a sign of grief