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Title: Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes
       Vol. II


Author: Edward FitzGerald

Editor: William Aldis Wright

Release Date: February 6, 2007  [eBook #20539]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD***





Transcribed from the 1901 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD


IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1901

_All rights reserved_

_First Edition_ 1894.  _Reprinted_ 1901

{The "Little Grange," Woodbridge: p0.jpg}




LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD


_To E. B. Cowell_.

88 GT. PORTLAND ST., LONDON,
_Jan._ 13/59.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I have been here some five weeks: but before my Letter reaches you shall
probably have slid back into the Country somewhere.  This is my old
Lodging, but new numbered.  I have been almost alone here: having seen
even Spedding and Donne but two or three times.  They are well and go on
as before.  Spedding has got out the seventh volume of Bacon, I believe:
with Capital Prefaces to Henry VII., etc.  But I have not yet seen it.
After vol. viii. (I think) there is to be a Pause: till Spedding has set
the Letters to his Mind.  Then we shall see what he can make of his
Blackamoor. . . .

I am almost ashamed to write to you, so much have I forsaken Persian, and
even all good Books of late.  There is no one now to 'prick the Sides of
my Intent'; Vaulting Ambition having long failed to do so!  I took my
Omar from Fraser [? Parker], as I saw he didn't care for it; and also I
want to enlarge it to near as much again, of such Matter as he would not
dare to put in Fraser.  If I print it, I shall do the impudence of
quoting your Account of Omar, and your Apology for his Freethinking: it
is not wholly my Apology, but you introduced him to me, and your excuse
extends to that which you have not ventured to quote, and I do.  I like
your Apology extremely also, allowing its Point of View.  I doubt you
will repent of ever having showed me the Book.  I should like well to
have the Lithograph Copy of Omar which you tell of in your Note.  My
Translation has its merit: but it misses a main one in Omar, which I will
leave you to find out.  The Latin Versions, if they were corrected into
decent Latin, would be very much better. . . .  I have forgotten to write
out for you a little Quatrain which Binning found written in Persepolis;
the Persian Tourists having the same propensity as English to write their
Names and Sentiments on their national Monuments. {2}

* * * * *

In the early part of 1859 his friend William Browne was terribly injured
by his horse falling upon him and lingered in great agony for several
weeks.

_To W. B. Donne_.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD.
_March_ 26 [1859].

MY DEAR DONNE,

Your folks told you on what Errand I left your house so abruptly.  I was
not allowed to see W. B. the day I came: nor yesterday till 3 p.m.; when,
poor fellow, he tried to write a line to me, like a child's! and I went,
and saw, no longer the gay Lad, nor the healthy Man, I had known: but a
wreck of all that: a Face like Charles I. (after decapitation almost)
above the Clothes: and the poor shattered Body underneath lying as it had
lain eight weeks; such a case as the Doctor says he had never known.
Instead of the light utterance of other days too, came the slow painful
syllables in a far lower Key: and when the old familiar words, 'Old
Fellow--Fitz'--etc., came forth, so spoken, I broke down too in spite of
foregone Resolution.

They thought he'd die last Night: but this Morning he is a little better:
but no hope.  He has spoken of me in the Night, and (if he wishes) I
shall go again, provided his Wife and Doctor approve.  But it agitates
him: and Tears he could not wipe away came to his Eyes.  The poor Wife
bears up wonderfully.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_April_ 27 [1859]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Above is the Address you had better direct to in future.  I have had a
great Loss.  W. Browne was fallen upon and half crushed by his horse near
three months ago: and though the Doctors kept giving hopes while he lay
patiently for two months in a condition no one else could have borne for
a Fortnight, at last they could do no more, nor Nature neither: and he
sunk.  I went to see him before he died--the comely spirited Boy I had
known first seven and twenty years ago lying all shattered and Death in
his Face and Voice. . . .

Well, this is so: and there is no more to be said about it.  It is one of
the things that reconcile me to my own stupid Decline of Life--to the
crazy state of the world--Well--no more about it.

I sent you poor old Omar who has _his_ kind of Consolation for all these
Things.  I doubt you will regret you ever introduced him to me.  And yet
you would have me print the original, with many worse things than I have
translated.  The Bird Epic might be finished at once: but 'cui bono?'  No
one cares for such things: and there are doubtless so many better things
to care about.  I hardly know why I print any of these things, which
nobody buys; and I scarce now see the few I give them to.  But when one
has done one's best, and is sure that that best is better than so many
will take pains to do, though far from the best that _might be done_, one
likes to make an end of the matter by Print.  I suppose very few People
have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not
to be literal.  But at all Cost, a Thing must _live_: with a transfusion
of one's own worse Life if one can't retain the Original's better.  Better
a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle.  I shall be very well pleased to see
the new MS. of Omar.  I shall _one day_ (if I live) print the 'Birds,'
and a strange experiment on old Calderon's two great Plays; and then shut
up Shop in the Poetic Line.  Adieu: Give my love to the Lady: and believe
me yours very truly E. F. G.

You see where those Persepolitan Verses {5} come from.  I wonder you were
not startled with the metre, though maimed a bit.

_To T. Carlyle_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_June_ 20/59.

DEAR CARLYLE,

Very soon after I called and saw Mrs. Carlyle I got a violent cold, which
(being neglected) flew to my Ears, and settled into such a Deafness I
couldn't hear the Postman knock nor the Omnibus roll.  When I began
(after more than a Month) to begin recovering of this (though still so
deaf as to determine not to be a Bore to any one else) I heard from
Bedford that my poor W. Browne (who got you a Horse some fifteen years
ago) had been fallen on and crushed all through the middle Body by one of
his own: and I then kept expecting every Postman's knock was to announce
his Death.  He kept on however in a shattered Condition which the Doctors
told me scarce any one else would have borne a Week; kept on for near two
Months, and then gave up his honest Ghost.  I went to bid him Farewell:
and then came here (an Address you remember), only going to Lowestoft (on
the Sea) to entertain my old George Crabbe's two Daughters, who, now
living inland, are glad of a sight of the old German Sea, and also
perhaps of poor Me.  I return to Lowestoft (for a few days only)
to-morrow, and shall perhaps see the Steam of your Ship passing the
Shore.  I have always been wanting to sail to Scotland: but my old Fellow-
traveller is gone!  His Accident was the more vexatious as quite
unnecessary--so to say--returning quietly from Hunting.  But there's no
use talking of it.  Your Destinies and Silences have settled it.

I really had wished to go and see Mrs. Carlyle again: I won't say you,
because I don't think in your heart you care to be disturbed; and I am
glad to believe that, with all your Pains, you are better than any of us,
I do think.  You don't care what one thinks of your Books: you know I
love so many: I don't care so much for Frederick so far as he's gone: I
suppose you don't neither.  I was thinking of you the other Day reading
in Aubrey's Wiltshire how he heard Cromwell one Day at Dinner (I think)
at Hampton Court say that Devonshire showed the best Farming of any Part
of England he had been in.  Did you know all the Dawson Turner Letters?

I see Spedding directs your Letter: which is nearly all I see of his MS.:
though he would let me see enough of it if there were a good Turn to be
done.

Please to give my best Remembrances to Mrs. Carlyle, and believe me yours
sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_.

LOWESTOFT, _October_ 16/59.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

In passing through London a week ago I found a very kind letter from you
directed to my London Lodging.  This will explain why it has not been
sooner answered.  As I do not know _your_ Address, I take the Opportunity
of enclosing my Reply to John Allen, of whom I have not heard since May.

I have been in these Suffolk and Norfolk Parts ever since I left London
in March to see my poor Lad die in Bedford.  The Lad I first met in the
Tenby Lodging house twenty-seven years ago--not sixteen then--and now
broken to pieces and scarce conscious, after two months such suffering as
the Doctor told me scarce any one would have borne for a Fortnight.  They
never told him it was all over with him until [within] ten Days of Death:
though every one else seem'd to _know_ it must be so--and he did not wish
to die yet.

I won't write more of a Matter that you can have but little Interest in,
and that I am as well not thinking about.  I came here partly to see his
Widow, and so (as I hope) to avoid having to go to Bedford for the
Present.  She, though a wretchedly sickly woman, and within two months of
her confinement when he died, has somehow weathered it all beyond
Expectation.  She has her children to attend to, and be her comfort in
turn: and though having lost what most she loved yet has something to
love still, and to be beloved by.  There are worse Conditions than that.

I am not going to be long here: but hope to winter somewhere in Suffolk
(London very distasteful now)--But here again:--my good Hostess with whom
I have lodged in Suffolk is dead too: and I must wait till _that_
Household settles down a little.

If it ever gives you pleasure to write to me, it gives me real Pleasure
to hear of you: and I am sincerely grateful for your kind Remembrance of
me.

'Geldestone Hall--Beccles' or 'Farlingay Hall, Woodbridge,' are pretty
sure Addresses.  Please to remember me kindly to your Husband and believe
me

Yours very sincerely,

EDWD FITZGERALD.

BATH HOUSE, LOWESTOFT.
_October_ 26 [1859].

DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

I must thank you for your so kind Letter, and kind Invitation.  But if I
was but five Days with my old College Friend after twelve years' Promise,
and then didn't go just on to Teignmouth to see my Sister, and her
Family, I must not talk of going elsewhere--even to Prees--where John is
always good enough to be asking me: even in a Letter To day received.

By the way, Last Saturday at Norwich while I was gazing into a Shop, a
Woman's Voice said, 'How d' ye do, Mr. FitzGerald?'  I looked up: a young
Woman too, whom (of course) I didn't know.  'You don't remember me,
Andalusia Allen that was!'  Now Mrs. Day.  I had not seen her since '52,
a Girl of, I suppose, twelve, playing some Character in a Family Play.
John's Letter too tells me of his son going to College.

But Tenby--I don't remember a pleasanter Place.  I can now hear the Band
on the Steamer as it left the little Pier for Bristol, the Steamer that
brought me and the poor Boy now in his Grave to that Boardinghouse.  It
was such weather as now howls about this Lodging when one of those poor
starved Players was drowned on the Sands, and was carried past our
Windows after Dinner: I often remember the dull Trot of Men up the windy
Street, and our running to the Window, and the dead Head, hair, and
Shoulders hurried past.  That was Tragedy, poor Fellow, whatever Parts he
had played before.

I think you remember me with Kindness because accidentally associated
with your old Freestone in those pleasant Days, that also were among the
last of your Sister's Life.  Her too I can see, with her China-rose
complexion: in the Lilac Gown she wore.

I keep on here from Week to week, partly because no other Place offers:
but I almost doubt if I shall be here beyond next week.  Not in this
Lodging anyhow: which is wretchedly 'rafty' and cold; lets the Rain in
when it Rains: and the Dust of the Shore when it drives: as both have
been doing by turns all Yesterday and To day.  I was cursing all this as
I was shivering here by myself last Night: and in the Morning I hear of
three Wrecks off the Sands, and indeed meet five shipwreckt Men with a
Troop of Sailors as I walk out before Breakfast.  Oh Dear!

Please remember me to your 'Gude Man' and believe me yours truly,

E. F. G.

Pray do excuse all this Blotting: my Paper _won't_ dry To day.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

10 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Nov._ 27, 1859.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

After a Fortnight's Visit to my Sister's (where I caught Cold which flew
at once to my Ears, and there hangs) I returned hither, as the nearest
Place to go to, and here shall be till Christmas at all Events.  I wish
to avoid London this winter: and indeed seem almost to have done with it,
except for a Day's Business or Sightseeing every now and then.  Often
should I like to roam about old Cambridge, and hear St. Mary's Chimes at
Midnight--but--but!  This Place of course is dull enough: but here's the
Old Sea (a dirty Dutch one, to be sure) and Sands, and Sailors, a very
fine Race of Men, far superior to those in Regent Street.  Also the
Dutchmen (an ugly set whom I can't help liking for old Neighbours) come
over in their broad Bottoms and take in Water at a Creek along the Shore.
But I believe the East winds get very fierce after Christmas, when the
Sea has cooled down.  You won't come here, to be sure: or I should be
very glad to smoke a Cigar, and have a Chat: and would take care to have
a Fire in your Bedroom this time: a Negligence I was very sorry for in
London.

I read, or was told, they wouldn't let old Alfred's Bust into your
Trinity.  They are right, I think, to let no one in there (as it should
be in Westminster Abbey) till a Hundred Years are past; when, after too
much Admiration (perhaps) and then a Reaction of undue Dis-esteem, Men
have settled into some steady Opinion on the subject: supposing always
that the Hero survives so long, which of itself goes so far to decide the
Question.  No doubt A. T. will do _that_.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

10 MARINE TERRACE,
LOWESTOFT.
_Febr._ 23/60.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

'Me voila ici' still! having weathered it out so long.  No bad Place, I
assure you, though you who are accustomed to Pall Mall, Clubs, etc.,
wouldn't like it.  Mudie finds one out easily: and the London Library
too: and altogether I can't complain of not getting such drowsy Books as
I want.  Hakluyt lasted a long while: then came Captain Cook, whom I
hadn't read since I was a Boy, and whom I was very glad to see again.  But
he soon evaporates in his large Type Quartos.  I can hardly manage
Emerson Tennent's Ceylon: a very dry Catalogue Raisonnee of the Place.  A
little Essay of De Quincey's gave me a better Idea of it (as I suppose)
in some twenty or thirty pages.  Anyhow, I prefer Lowestoft, considering
the Snakes, Sand-leaches, Mosquitos, etc.  I suppose Russell's Indian
Diary is over-coloured: but I feel sure it's true in the Main: and he has
the Art to make one feel in the thick of it; quite enough in the Thick,
however.  Sir C. Napier came here to try and get the Beachmen to enlist
in the Naval Reserve.  Not one would go: they won't give up their
Independence: and so really half starve here during Winter.  Then Spring
comes and they go and catch the Herrings which, if left alone, would
multiply by Millions by Autumn: and so kill their Golden Goose.  They are
a strange set of Fellows.  I think a Law ought to be made against their
Spring Fishing: more important, for their own sakes, than Game Laws.

I laid out half a crown on your Fraser {13}: and liked much of it very
much: especially the Beginning about the Advantage the Novelist has over
the Play-writer.  A little too much always about Miss Austen, whom yet I
think quite capital in a Circle I have found quite unendurable to walk
in.  Thackeray's first Number was famous, I thought: his own little
Roundabout Paper so pleasant: but the Second Number, I say, lets the
Cockney in already: about Hogarth: Lewes is vulgar: and I don't think one
can care much for Thackeray's Novel.  He is always talking so of himself,
too.  I have been very glad to find I could take to a Novel again, in
Trollope's Barchester Towers, etc.: not perfect, like Miss Austen: but
then so much wider Scope: and perfect enough to make me feel I know the
People though caricatured or carelessly drawn.  I doubt if you can read
my writing here: or whether it will be worth your Pains to do so.  If you
can, or can not, one Day write me a Line, which I will read.  I suppose
when the Fields and Hedges begin to grow green I shall move a little
further inland to be among them.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_June_ 2/60.

DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

Your kind Note has reacht me here after a Fortnight's abode at my old
Lodgings in London.  In London I have not been for more than a year,
unless passing through it in September, and have no thought of going up
at present.  I don't think you were there last Spring, were you?  Or
perhaps I was gone before you arrived, as I generally used to get off as
soon as it began to fill, and the Country to become amiable.  Here at
last we have the 'May' coming out: there it is on some Thorns before my
Windows, and the Tower of Woodbridge Church beyond: and beyond that some
low Hills that stretch with Furze and Broom to the Seaside, about ten
miles off.

I am of course glad of so good a Report of John Allen.  I have long been
thinking of writing to him: among other things to give his Wife a Drawing
Laurence made of him for me some four and twenty years ago: in full
Canonicals--very serious--I think a capital Likeness on the whole, and
one that I take pleasure to look at.  But I think his Wife and Children
have more title to it: and one never can tell what will become of one's
Things when one's dead.  This same Drawing is now in London (I hope: for,
if not, it's lost) and you should see it if you had a mind.  For you
don't seem to find your way to Frees any more than I do: I should go if
there weren't a large Family.  Mrs. John is always very kind to me.  I do
think it is very kind of you too to remember and write to me: at any rate
I do answer Letters, which many better Men don't.

Please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me unforgetful of the
Good old Days, and of you, and yours,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_Septr._ 9/60.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

It is very kind of you to write to me.  Ah! how I can fancy the
Stillness, and the Colour, of your pretty Tenby!--now eight and twenty
years since seen!  But I can't summon Resolution to go to it: and daily
get worse and worse at moving any where, a common Fate as we grow older.

Your Note came in an Enclosure from your Cousin John, who seems to
flourish with Wife and Children.  It is Children who keep alive one's
Interest in Life: that is to say, if one happens to like one's Children.

I have had to stay with me the two sons of my poor Friend killed last
year: he whom I first made Acquaintance with at your very Tenby.  As I
haven't found Courage to go to their Country, their Mother would have
them come here, and I took them to _our_ Seaside; not a beautiful Coast
like yours--no Rocks, no Sands, and few Trees--but yet liked because
remembered by me as long as I can remember.  Anyhow, there are Ships,
Boats, and Sailors: and the Boys were well pleased with all that.  The
place we went to is _called Aldborough_: _spelt_ Aldeburgh: and is the
Birth place of the Poet Crabbe, who also has _Daguerrotyped_ much of the
Character of the Place in his Poems.  You send me some Lines about the
Sea: what if I return you four of his?

   Still as I gaze upon the Sea I find
   Its waves an Image of my restless mind:
   _Here_ Thought on Thought: _there_ Wave on Wave succeeds,
   Their Produce--idle Thought and idle Weeds!

Adieu: please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me yours ever
very sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE,
_Decr._ 28/60.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I forgot to tell you I really ran to London three weeks ago: by the
morning Express, and was too glad to rush back by the Evening Ditto.  I
went up for a Business I of course did not accomplish: did not call on,
or see, a Friend: couldn't get into the National Gallery: and didn't care
a straw for Holman Hunt's Picture.  No doubt, there is Thought and Care
in it: but what an outcome of several Years and sold for several
Thousands!  What Man with the Elements of a Great Painter could come out
with such a costive Thing after so long waiting!  Think of the Acres of
Canvas Titian or Reynolds would have covered with grand Outlines and deep
Colours in the Time it has taken to niggle this Miniature!  The Christ
seemed to me only a wayward Boy: the Jews, Jews no doubt: the Temple I
dare say very correct in its Detail: but think of even Rembrandt's Woman
in Adultery at the National Gallery; a much smaller Picture, but how much
vaster in Space and Feeling!  Hunt's Picture stifled me with its
Littleness.  I think Ruskin must see what his System has led to.

I have just got Lady Waterford's 'Babes in the Wood,' which are well
enough, pretty in Colour: only, why has she made so bad a Portrait of one
of her chief Performers, whose Likeness is so easily got at, the Robin
Redbreast?  This Lady Waterford was at Gillingham this Summer: and my
Sister Eleanor said (as Thackeray had done) she was something almost to
worship for unaffected Dignity.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Whit-Monday_ [_May_ 20, 1861].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I take pleasure in my new little Boat: and last week went with her
to Aldbro'; and she '_behaved_' very well both going and returning;
though, to be sure, there was not much to try her Temper.  I am so glad
of this fine Whit-Monday, when so many Holiday-makers will enjoy
_their_selves, and so many others make a little money by their Enjoyment.
Our 'Rifles' are going to march to Grundisburgh, _manuring_ and
_skrimmaging_ as they go, and also (as the Captain {18} hopes)
recruiting.  He is a right good little Fellow, I do believe.  It is a
shame the Gentry hereabout are so indifferent in the Matter: they
subscribe next to nothing: and give absolutely nothing in the way of
Entertainment or Attention to the Corps.  But we are split up into the
pettiest possible Squirarchy, who want to make the utmost of their little
territory: cut down all the Trees, level all the old Violet Banks, and
stop up all the Footways they can.  The old pleasant way from Hasketon to
Bredfield is now a Desert.  I was walking it yesterday and had the
pleasure of breaking down and through some Bushes and Hurdles put to
block up a fallen Stile.  I thought what your Father would have said of
it all.  And really it is the sad ugliness of our once pleasant Fields
that half drives me to the Water where the Power of the Squirarchy stops!

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE:
_May_ 22/61.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I receive two Books, via Geldestone, from you: Khold-i-barin (including a
Lecture of your own) and 'Promises of Christianity': I think directed in
your Wife's hand.  The Lecture was, I doubt not, very well adapted to its
purpose: the other two Publications I must look at by and bye.  I can't
tell you how indolent I have become about Books: some Travels and
Biographies from Mudie are nearly all I read now.  Then, I have only been
in London some dozen hours these two years past: my last Expedition was
this winter for five hours: when I ran home here like a beaten Dog.  So I
have little to tell you of Friends as of Books.  Spedding hammers away at
his Bacon (impudently forestalled by H. Dixon's Book).  Carlyle is not so
up to work as of old (I hear).  Indeed, he wrote me he was ill last
Summer, and obliged to cut Frederick and be off to Scotland and Idleness:
the Doctors warned him of Congestion of Brain: a warning he scorned.  But
what more likely?  The last account I had of Alfred Tennyson from Mrs. A.
was a good one.  Frederic T. is settled at Jersey.  I cannot make up my
mind to go to see any of these good, noble men: I only hope they believe
I do not forget, or cease to regard them.

My chief Amusement in Life is Boating, on River and Sea.  The Country
about here is the Cemetery of so many of my oldest Friends: and the petty
race of Squires who have succeeded only use the Earth for an
_Investment_: cut down every old Tree: level every Violet Bank: and make
the old Country of my Youth hideous to me in my Decline.  There are fewer
Birds to be heard, as fewer Trees for them to resort to.  So I get to the
Water: where Friends are not buried nor Pathways stopt up: but all is, as
the Poets say, as Creation's Dawn beheld.  I am happiest going in my
little Boat round the Coast to Aldbro', with some Bottled Porter and some
Bread and Cheese, and some good rough Soul who works the Boat and chews
his Tobacco in peace.  An Aldbro' Sailor talking of my Boat said--'She go
like a Wiolin, she do!'  What a pretty Conceit, is it not?  As the Bow
slides over the Strings in a liquid Tune.  Another man was talking
yesterday of a great Storm: 'and, in a moment, all as calm as a Clock.'

By the bye, Forby reasons that our Suffolk third person singular 'It go,
etc.,' is probably right as being the old Icelandic form.  Why should the
3rd p. sing. be the only one that varies.  And in the auxiliaries _May_,
_Shall_, _Can_, etc., there _is_ no change for the 3rd pers.  I incline
to the Suffolk because of its avoiding a hiss.

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 4/61.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Let me know when you come into these Parts, and be sure I shall be glad
to entertain you as well as I can if you come while I am here.  Nor am I
likely to be away further than Aldbro', so far as I see.  I do meditate
crossing one fine Day to Holland: to see the Hague, Paul Potter, and some
Rembrandt at Rotterdam.  This, however, is not to be done in my little
Boat: but in some Trader from Ipswich.  I also talk of a cruise to
Edinburgh in one of their Schooners.  But both these Excursions I reserve
for such hot weather as may make a retreat from the Town agreeable.  I
make no advances to Farlingay, because (as yet) we have not had any such
Heat as to bake the Houses here: and, beside, I am glad to be by the
River.  It is strange how sad the Country has become to me.  I went
inland to see Acton's Curiosities before the Auction: and was quite glad
to get back to the little Town again.  I am quite clear I must live the
remainder of my Life in a Town: but a little one, and with a strip of
Garden to saunter in. . . .

I go sometimes to see the Rifles drill, and shoot at their Target, and
have got John {22} to ask them up to Boulge to practise some day: I must
insinuate that he should offer them some Beer when they get there.  It is
a shame the Squires do nothing in the matter: take no Interest: offer no
Encouragement, beyond a Pound or two in Money.  And who are those who
have most interest at stake in case of Rifles being really wanted?  But I
am quite assured that this Country is dying, as other Countries die, as
Trees die, atop first.  The lower Limbs are making all haste to follow. . . .

By the bye, don't let me forget to ask you to bring with you my Persian
Dictionary in case you come into these Parts.  I read very very little:
and get very desultory: but when Winter comes again must take to some
dull Study to keep from Suicide, I suppose.  The River, the Sea, etc.,
serve to divert one now.

Adieu.  These long Letters prove one's Idleness.

_To R. C. Trench_. {23a}

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_July_ 3/61.

DEAR DOCTOR TRENCH,

Thank you sincerely for the delightful little Journal {23b} which I had
from you yesterday, and only wished to be a dozen times as long.  The
beautiful note at p. 73 speaks of much yet unprinted!  It is a pity Mrs.
Kemble had not read p. 79.  I thought in the Night of 'the subdued Voice
of Good Sense' and 'The Eye that invites you to look into it.'  I doubt I
can read, more or less attentively, most personal Memoirs: but I am
equally sure of the superiority of this, in its Shrewdness, Humour,
natural Taste, and Good Breeding.  One is sorry for the account of Lord
Nelson: but one cannot doubt it.  It was at the time when he was
intoxicated, I suppose, with Glory and Lady Hamilton.  What your Mother
says of the Dresden Madonna reminds me of what Tennyson once said: that
the Attitude of The Child was that of a Man: but perhaps not the less
right for all that.  As to the Countenance, he said that scarce any Man's
Face could look so grave and rapt as a Baby's could at times.  He once
said of his own Child's, 'He was a whole hour this morning worshipping
the Sunshine playing on the Bedpost.'  He never writes Letters or
Journals: but I hope People will be found to remember some of the things
he has said as naturally as your Mother wrote them. {24}

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_July_ 15/61.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

I was very glad to hear of you again.  You need never take it to
Conscience, not answering my Letters, further than that I really do want
to hear you are well, and where you are, and what doing, from time to
time.  I have absolutely nothing to tell about myself, not having moved
from this place since I last wrote, unless to our Sea coast at Aldbro',
whither I run, or sail, from time to time to idle with the Sailors in
their Boats or on their Beach.  I love their childish ways: but they too
degenerate.  As to reading, my Studies have lain chiefly in some back
Volumes of the New Monthly Magazine and some French Memoirs.  Trench was
good enough to send me a little unpublished Journal by his Mother: a very
pretty thing indeed.  I suppose he did this in return for one or two
Papers on Oriental Literature which Cowell had sent me from India, and
which I thought might interest Trench.  I am very glad to hear old
Spedding is really getting _his_ Share of Bacon into Print: I doubt if it
will be half as good as the '_Evenings_,' where Spedding was in the
_Passion_ which is wanted to fill his Sail for any longer Voyage.

I have not seen his Paper on English Hexameters {25} which you tell me
of: but I will now contrive to do so.  I, however, believe in them: and I
think the ever-recurring attempts that way show there is some ground for
such belief.  To be sure, the Philosopher's Stone, and the Quadrature of
the Circle, have had at least as many Followers. . . .

It was finding some Bits of Letters and Poems of old Alfred's that made
me wish to restore those I gave you to the number, as marking a by-gone
time to me.  That they will not so much do to you, who did not happen to
save them from the Fire when the Volumes of 1842 were printing.  But I
would waive that if you found it good or possible to lay them up in
Trinity Library in the Closet with Milton's!  Otherwise, I would still
look at them now and then for the few years I suppose I have to live. . . .

This is a terribly long Letter: but, if it be legible sufficiently, will
perhaps do as if I were spinning it in talk under the walls of the
Cathedral.  I dare not now even talk of going any visits: I can truly say
I wish you could drop in here some Summer Day and take a Float with me on
our dull River, which does lead to THE SEA some ten miles off. . .

You must think I have become very nautical, by all this: haul away at
ropes, swear, dance Hornpipes, etc.  But it is not so: I simply sit in
Boat or Vessel as in a moving Chair, dispensing a little Grog and Shag to
those who do the work.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_December_ 7/61.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I shall look directly for the passages in Omar and Hafiz which you
refer to and clear up, though I scarce ever see the Persian Character
now.  I suppose you would think it a dangerous thing to edit Omar: else,
who so proper?  Nay, are you not the only Man to do it?  And he certainly
is worth good re-editing.  I thought him from the first the most
remarkable of the Persian Poets: and you keep finding out in him
Evidences of logical Fancy which I had not dreamed of.  I dare say these
logical Riddles are not his best: but they are yet evidences of a
Strength of mind which our Persian Friends rarely exhibit, I think.  I
always said about Cowley, Donne, etc., whom Johnson calls the
metaphysical Poets, that their very Quibbles of Fancy showed a power of
Logic which could follow Fancy through such remote Analogies.  This is
the case with Calderon's Conceits also.  I doubt I have given but a very
one-sided version of Omar: but what I do only comes up as a Bubble to the
Surface, and breaks: whereas you, with exact Scholarship, might make a
lasting impression of such an Author.  So I say of Jelaluddin, whom you
need not edit in Persian, perhaps, unless in selections, which would be
very good work: but you should certainly translate for us some such
selections exactly in the way in which you did that apologue of Azrael.
{27}  I don't know the value of the Indian Philosophy, etc., which you
tell me is a fitter exercise for the Reason: but I am sure that you
should give us some of the Persian I now speak of, which you can do all
so easily to yourself; yes, as a holiday recreation, you say, to your
Indian Studies.  As to India being 'your Place,' it may be: but as to
your being lost in England, that could not be.  You know I do not
flatter. . . .

I declare I should like to go to India as well as any where: and I
believe it might be the best thing for me to do.  But, always slow at
getting under way as I have been all my Life, what is to be done with one
after fifty!  I am sure there is no longer any great pleasure living in
this Country, so tost with perpetual Alarms as it is.  One Day we are all
in Arms about France.  To-day we are doubting if To-morrow we may not be
at War to the Knife with America!  I say still, as I used, we have too
much Property, Honour, etc., on our Hands: our outward Limbs go on
lengthening while our central Heart beats weaklier: I say, as I used, we
should give up something before it is forced from us.  The World, I
think, may justly resent our being and interfering all over the Globe.
Once more I say, would we were a little, peaceful, unambitious, trading,
Nation, like--the Dutch! . . .

Adieu, My Dear Cowell; once more, Adieu.  I doubt if you can read what I
have written.  Do not forget my Love to your Wife.  I wonder if we are
ever to meet again: you would be most disappointed if we were!

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Dec._ 9/61.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

The MS. came safe to hand yesterday, thank you: and came out of its
Envelope like a Ray of Old Times to my Eyes.  I wish I had secured more
leaves from that old '_Butcher's Book_' torn up in old Spedding's Rooms
in 1842 when the Press went to work with, I think, the Last of old
Alfred's Best.  But that, I am told, is only a 'Crotchet.'  However, had
I taken some more of the Pages that went into the Fire, after serving in
part for Pipe-lights, I might have enriched others with that which AT
{29} himself would scarce have grudged, jealous as he is of such sort of
Curiosity.

I have seen no more of Tannhauser than the Athenaeum showed me; and
certainly do not want to see more.  One wonders that Men of some Genius
(as I suppose these are) should so disguise it in Imitation: but, if they
be very young men, this is the natural course, is it not?  By and by they
may find their own Footing.

As to my own Peccadilloes in Verse, which never pretend to be original,
this is the story of _Rubaiyat_.  I had translated them partly for
Cowell: young Parker asked me some years ago for something for Fraser,
and I gave him the less wicked of these to use if he chose.  He kept them
for two years without using: and as I saw he did'nt want them I printed
some copies with Quaritch; and, keeping some for myself, gave him the
rest.  Cowell, to whom I sent a Copy, was naturally alarmed at it; he
being a very religious Man: nor have I given any other Copy but to George
Borrow, to whom I had once lent the Persian, and to old Donne when he was
down here the other Day, to whom I was showing a Passage in another Book
which brought my old Omar up.

(end of letter lost.)

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_March_ 19/62.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

Thanks for your Letter in the middle of graver occupations.  It will give
me very great pleasure if you will come here: but not if you only do so
out of kindness; I mean, if you have no other call of Business or
Pleasure to yourself.  For I don't deserve--

You should have sent me some Photograph.  I hate them nearly all: but S.
Rice {30} was very good.  I wonder you don't turn out well: I suppose,
too black, is it?  It is generally florid people, I think, who fail: yet,
strange to say, my Brother Peter has come quite handsome in the Process.
. . .

I am all for a little Flattery in Portraits: that is, so far as, I think,
the Painter or Sculptor should try at something more agreeable than
anything he sees sitting to him: when People look either bored, or
smirking: he should give the best possible Aspect which the Features
before him _might_ wear, even if the Artist had not seen that Aspect.
Especially when he works for Friends or Kinsfolk: for even the plainest
face has looked handsome to them at some happy moment, and just such we
like to have perpetuated.

Now, I really do feel ashamed when you ask about my Persian Translations,
though they are all very well: only very little affairs.  I really have
not the face to send to Milnes direct: but I send you four Copies which I
have found in a Drawer here to do as you will with.  This will save
Milnes, or any one else, the bore of writing to me to acknowledge it.

My old Boat has been altered, I hope not spoiled; and I shall soon be
preparing for the Water--and Mud.  I don't think one can reckon on warm
weather till after the Longest Day: but if you should come before, it
will surely be warm enough to walk, or drive, if not to sail; and Leaves
will be green, if the Tide should be out.

You would almost think I wanted to repay you in Compliment if I told you
I regarded even your hasty Letters as excellent in all respects.  I do,
however: but I do not wish you to write one when you are busy or
disinclined.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Sept._ 29/62.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

'What Cheer, ho!'  I somehow fancy that a Line of Nonsense will catch you
before you leave Ely: and yet, now I come to think, you will have left
Ely, probably, and will be returning in another Fortnight to Cambridge
for the Term.  Well, I will direct to Cambridge then; and my Note shall
await you there, and you need not answer it till some very happy hour of
Leisure and Inclination.  As to Inclination, indeed, I don't think you
will ever have much of that, toward writing such Letters, I mean; what
sensible Man after forty has?  You have done so much more (in my Eyes,
and perhaps so much less in your own) coming all this way to see me!  I
did wonder at the Goodness of that.  I suppose Spedding didn't tell you
that I wrote to him to say so.  It was very unlucky I was out when you
came: I have often thought of that with vexation.

Well, I have gone on Boating, etc., just the same ever since.  And just
now I have been applying to Spring Rice to use his Influence to get a
larger Buoy laid at the mouth of our River; across which lies a vile Bar
of shifting Sand, and such a little Bit of a Buoy to mark it that we
often almost miss it going in and out, and are in danger of running on
the Shoal; which would break the Boat to Pieces if not drown us.  Here is
a fine Piece of Information to a Canon of Ely and Professor of Greek at
Cambridge!

Spring Rice does not speak well, I think, of his health; not at all well;
and his Handwriting looks shaky.  What a Loyal Kind Heart it is!

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE,
_Nov._ 28/62.

MY DEAR DONNE,

I talk indignantly against others bothering you, and do worse than all
myself, I think, what with Bookbindings, Dressing-gowns, etc.  (N.B. You
know that the last is only in case when you are going your Rounds to St.
James, etc.)  Now I have a little Query to make: which, not being even so
much out of your way, won't I hope trouble you.  I remember Thompson
telling me that, from what he had read and seen of Grecian Geography, he
almost thought Clytemnestra's famous Account of the Line of Signal Fires
from Troy to Mycenae to be possible (I mean you know in the Agamemnon).
At least this is what _I believe_ he said: I must not assert from a not
very accurate Memory anything that would compromise a Greek Professor: I
am so ignorant of Geography, ancient as well as modern, I don't know
exactly, or at all, the Points of the Beacons so enumerated: and
Lempriere, the only Classic I have to refer to, doesn't help me in what I
want.  Will you turn to the passage, and tell me _what_, and _where_,
are:

1.  The [Greek text]--

2.  The [Greek text]--

3.  The [Greek text].

_What_, _where_, and _why_, so called?  The rest I know, or can find in
Dictionary, and Map.  But for these--

         Lempriere
         Is no-where;
         Liddell and Scott
         Don't help me a jot:
         When I'm off, Donnegan
         Don't help me _on again_.--
   So I'm obliged to resort to old _Donne again_!

Rhyme and Epigram quite worthy of the German.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

Fragment of a Letter written in Nov. 1862.

I took down a Juvenal to look for a Passage about the Loaded Waggon
rolling through the Roman Streets. {34}  I couldn't find it.  Do you know
where it is?  Not that you need answer this Question, which only comes in
as if I were talking to you.  I remember asking you whence AEschylus made
his Agamemnon speak of Ulysses as unwilling at first to go on the Trojan
Expedition.  I see Paley refers it to some Poem called the Cypria quoted
by Proclus.  I was asking Donne the other Day as to some of the names of
the Beacon-places in Clytemnestra's famous Speech: and I then said I
_believed_--but only _believed_, as an inaccurate Man, not wishing to
implicate others--that you, Thompson, had once told me that you thought
the Chain of Fires _might_ have passed from Troy to Mycenae in the way
described--_just possibly_ MIGHT, I think--I assure you I took care not
to commit your Credit by my uncertain Memory, whatever it was you said
was only in a casual way over a Cigar.  Are you for [Greek text]? {35a} a
point I don't care a straw about; so don't answer this neither.

No, I didn't go to the Exhibition: which, I know, looks like Affectation:
but was honest Incuriosity and Indolence.

. . . On looking over Juvenal for the Lines I wanted I was amused at the
prosaic Truth of one I didn't want:

   Intolerabilius nihil est quam femina dives. {35b}

_To George Crabbe_.

_Dec._ 20, 1862.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I have been, and am, reading Borrow's 'Wild Wales,' which _I_ like
well, because I can hear him talking it.  But I don't know if others will
like it: anyhow there is too much of the same thing.  Then what is meant
for the plainest record of Conversation, etc., has such Phrases as 'Marry
come up,' etc., which mar the sense of Authenticity.  Then, no one
writing better English than Borrow in general, there is the vile
_Individual_--_Person_--and _Locality_ always cropping up: and even this
vulgar Young Ladyism, 'The Scenery was beautiful _to a Degree_.'  _What_
Degree?  When did this vile Phrase arise?

_To W. H. Thompson_.

_Good Friday_, 1863.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

Pray never feel ashamed of not answering my Letters so long as you do
write twice a year, to let me know you live and thrive.  As much oftener
as you please: but you are only to be ashamed of not doing that.  For
that I really want of all who have been very kind and very constant
('_loyal_' is the word that even Emperors now use of themselves) for so
many years.  This I say in all sincerity.

Now, while you talk of being ashamed of not writing, I am rather ashamed
of writing so much to you.  Partly because I really have so little to
say; and also because saying that little too often puts you to the shame
you speak of.  You say my Letters are pleasant, however: and they will be
so far pleasant if they assure you that I like talking to you in that
way: bad as I am at more direct communication.  I can tell you your
letters are very pleasant to me; you at least have always something to
tell of your half-year's Life: and you tell it so wholesomely, I always
say in so capital a Style, as makes me regret you have not written some
of your better Knowledge for the Public.  I suppose (as I have heard)
that your Lectures {37} are excellent in this way; I can say I should
like very much to attend a course of them, on the Greek Plays, or on
Plato.  I dare say you are right about an Apprenticeship in Red Tape
being necessary to make a Man of Business: but is it too late in Life for
you to buckle to and screw yourself up to condense some of your Lectures
and scholarly Lore into a Book?  By 'too late in Life' I mean too late to
take Heart to do it.

I am sure you won't believe that I am _scratching_ you in return for any
scratchings from your hands.  We are both too old, too sensible, and too
independent, I think, for that sort of thing.

As to my going to Ely in June, I don't know yet what to say; for I have
been Fool enough to order a Boat to be building which will cost me 350
pounds, and she talks of being launched in the very first week of June,
and I have engaged for some short trips in her as soon as she is afloat.
I begin to feel tired of her already; I felt I should when I was
persuaded to order her: and that is the Folly of it.  They say it is a
very bad Thing to do Nothing: but I am sure that is not the case with
those who are born to Blunder; I always find that I have to repent of
what I have done, not what I have left undone; and poor W. Browne used to
say it was better even to repent of what [was] undone than done.  You
know how glad I should be if you came here: but I haven't the Face to ask
it, especially after that misfit last Summer; which was not my fault
however.

I always look upon old Spedding's as one of the most wasted Lives I know:
and he is a wise Man!  Twenty years ago I told him that he should knock
old Bacon off; I don't mean give him up, but wind him up at far less
sacrifice of Time and Labour; and edit Shakespeare.  I think it _would_
have been worth his Life to have done those two; and I am always
persuaded his Bacon would have been better if done more at a heat.  I
shall certainly buy the new Shakespeare you tell me of, if the Volumes
aren't bulky; which destroys my pleasure in the use of a Book.

I have had my share of Influenza: even this Woodbridge, with all its
capital Air and self-contented Stupidity (which you know is very
conducive to long Life) has been wheezing and coughing all the very mild
winter; and the Bell of the Tower opposite my Room has been tolling
oftener than I ever remember.

Though I can't answer for _June_, I am really meditating a small trip to
Wiltshire _before_ June; mainly to see the daughters of my old George
Crabbe who are settled at Bradford on Avon, and want very much that I
should see how happily they live on very small means indeed.  And I must
own I am the more tempted to go abroad because there is preparation for a
Marriage in my Family (a Niece--but not one of my Norfolk Nieces) which
is to be at my Brother's near here; and there will be a Levee of People,
who drop in here, etc.  This may blow over, however.

Now I ought to be ashamed of this long Letter: don't you make me so by
answering it.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To George Crabbe_.

WOODBRIDGE, _June_ 8/63.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Your sister wrote me a very kind Letter to tell of her safe Return home.
I must repeat to you very sincerely that I never recollect to have passed
a pleasanter week.  As far as Company went, it was like Old Times at
Bredfield; and the Oak-trees were divine!  I never expected to care so
very much for Trees, nor for your flat Country: but I really feel as one
who has bathed in Verdure.  I suppose Town-living makes one alive to such
a Change.

I spent a long Day with Thompson: {40} and much liked the painted Roof.
On Thursday I went to Lynn: which I took a Fancy to: the odd old Houses:
the Quay: the really grand Inn (Duke's Head, in the Market place) and the
civil, Norfolk-talking, People.  I went to Hunstanton, which is rather
dreary: one could see the Country at Sandringham was good.  I enquired
fruitlessly about those Sandringham Pictures, etc.: even the Auctioneer,
whom I found in the Bar of the Inn, could tell nothing of where they had
gone.

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Sat. July_ 18/63.

MY DEAR DONNE,

. . . I can hardly tell you whether I am much pleased with my new Boat;
for I hardly know myself.  She is (as I doubted would be from the first)
rather awkward in our narrow River; but then she was to be a good Sea-
boat; and I don't know but she is; and will be better in all ways when we
have got her in proper trim.  Yesterday we gave her what they call '_a
tuning_' in a rather heavy swell round Orford Ness: and she did well
without a reef, etc.  But, now all is got, I don't any the more want to
go far away by Sea, any more than by Land; having no Curiosity left for
other Places, and glad to get back to my own Chair and Bed after three or
four Days' Absence.  So long as I get on the Sea from time to time, it is
much the same to me whether off Aldbro' or Penzance.  And I find I can't
sleep so well on board as I used to do thirty years ago: and not to get
one's Sleep, you know, indisposes one more or less for the Day.  However,
we talk of Dover, Folkestone, Holland, etc., which will give one's
sleeping Talents a _tuning_.

_To George Crabbe_.

WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 19, [1863].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

You tell me the Romney is at Gardner's: but where is Gardner's?  And what
was the Price of the Portrait?  Laurence said well about Romney that, as
compared to Sir Joshua and Gainsboro', his Pictures looked tinted, rather
than painted; the colour of the Cheek (for instance) rather superficially
laid on, as rouge, rather than ingrained, and mantling like Blood from
below.  Laurence had seen those at last year's Exhibition: I have not
seen near so many.  I remember one that seemed to me capital at Lord
Bute's in Bedfordshire.

I came home yesterday from a short Cruise to Yarmouth, etc., where some
people were interested in the Channel Fleet.  But I could take no
interest in Steam Ships and Iron Rams.

WOODBRIDGE, _August_ 4, [1863].

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I have at last done my Holland: you won't be surprised to hear that I did
it in two days, and was too glad to rush home on the first pretence,
after (as usual) seeing nothing I cared the least about.  The Country
itself I had seen long before in Dutch Pictures, and between Beccles and
Norwich: the Towns I had seen in Picturesque Annuals, Drop Scenes, etc.

But the Pictures--the Pictures--themselves?

Well, you know how I am sure to mismanage: but you will hardly believe,
even of me, that I never saw what was most worth seeing, the Hague
Gallery!  But so it was: had I been by myself, I should have gone off
directly (after landing at Rotterdam) to that: but Mr. Manby was with me:
and he thought best to see about Rotterdam first: which was last
Thursday, at whose earliest Dawn we arrived.  So we tore about in an open
Cab: saw nothing: the Gallery not worth a visit: and at night I was half
dead with weariness.  Then again on Friday I, by myself, should have
started for the Hague: but as Amsterdam was also to be done, we thought
best to go there (as furthest) first.  So we went: tore about the town in
a Cab as before: and I raced through the Museum seeing (I must say)
little better than what I have seen over and over again in England.  I
couldn't admire the Night-watch much: Van der Helst's very good Picture
seemed to me to have been cleaned: I thought the Rembrandt Burgomasters
worth all the rest put together.  But I certainly looked very flimsily at
all.

Well, all this done, away we went to the Hague: arriving there just as
the Museum closed for that day; next Day (Saturday) it was not to be open
at all (I having proposed to wait in case it should), and on Sunday only
from 12 to 2.  Hearing all this, in Rage and Despair I tore back to
Rotterdam: and on Saturday Morning got the Boat out of the muddy Canal in
which she lay and tore back down the Maas, etc., so as to reach dear old
Bawdsey shortly after Sunday's Sunrise.  Oh, my Delight when I heard them
call out 'Orford Lights!' as the Boat was plunging over the Swell.

All this is very stupid, really wrong: but you are not surprised at it in
me.  One reason however of my Disgust was, that we (in our Boat) were
shut up (as I said) in the Canal, where I couldn't breathe.  I begged Mr.
Manby to let me take him to an Inn: he would stick to his Ship, he said:
and I didn't like to leave him.  Then it was Murray who misled me about
the Hague Gallery: he knew nothing about its being shut on Saturdays.
Then again we neither of us knew a word of Dutch: and I was surprised how
little was known of English in return.

But I shall say no more.  I think it is the last foreign Travel I shall
ever undertake; unless I should go with you to see the Dresden Madonna:
to which there is one less impediment now Holland is not to be gone
through. . . .  I am the Colour of a Lobster with Sea-faring: and my Eyes
smart: so Good-Bye.  Let me hear of you.  Ever yours E. F. G.

Oh dear!--Rembrandt's Dissection--where and how did I miss that?

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Aug._ 5/63.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I don't hear from you: I rather think you are deterred by those _Birds_
which I asked you to print (in my last Letter) with some Correction,
etc., of your own: and which you have not found Time or Inclination to
get done.  But don't let anything of this sort prevent your writing to me
now and then: no one can be more utterly indifferent than I am whether
these Birds are printed or not: and I suppose I distinctly told you _not_
to put yourself to any Trouble.  Indeed I dare say I should only be bored
with the Copies when they were printed: for I don't know a Soul here who
would care for the Thing if it were ten times as well done as I have done
it: nor do I care for Translation or Original, myself.  Oh dear, when I
do look into Homer, Dante, and Virgil, AEschylus, Shakespeare, etc.,
those Orientals look--silly!  Don't resent my saying so.  _Don't_ they?  I
am now a good [deal] about in a new Boat I have built, and thought (as
Johnson took Cocker's Arithmetic with him on travel, because he shouldn't
exhaust it) so I would take Dante and Homer with me, instead of Mudie's
Books, which I read through directly.  I took Dante by way of slow
Digestion: not having looked at him for some years: but I am glad to find
I relish him as much as ever: he atones with the Sea; as you know does
the Odyssey--these are the Men!

I am just returned in my Ship from Holland--where I stayed--two days!--and
was so glad to rush away home after being imprisoned in a sluggish un-
sweet Canal in Rotterdam: and after tearing about to Amsterdam, the
Hague, etc., to see things which were neither new nor remarkable to me
though I had never seen them before--except in Pictures, which represent
to you the Places as well as if you went there, without the trouble of
going.  I am sure wiser men, with keener _out_sight and _in_sight would
see what no Pictures could give: but this I know is always the case with
me: this is my last Voyage abroad, I believe: unless I go to see
Raffaelle's Madonna at Dresden, which no other Picture can represent than
itself: unless Dante's Beatrice.

I don't think you ever told me if you had got, or read, Spedding's two
first volumes of Bacon.  My opinion is not the least altered of the Case:
and (as I anticipated) Spedding has brooded over his Egg so long he has
rather addled it.  Thompson told me that the very Papers he adduces to
clear Bacon in Essex's Business, rather go against him: I haven't seen
any Notice of the Book in any Review but Fraser: where Donne (of course)
was convinced, etc., and I hear that even the wise old Spedding is
_mortified_ that he has awakened so little Interest for his Hero.  You
know his Mortification would not be on _his own_ score.  His last Letter
to me (some months ago) seemed to indicate that he could scarce lift up
his Pen to go on--he had as yet, he said, written nothing of volumes 3
and 4.  But I suppose he _will_ in time.  I say this Life of his wasted
on a vain work is a Tragedy pathetic as Antigone or Iphigenia.  Of
Tennyson I hear but little: and I have ceased to look forward to any
future Work of his.  Thackeray seems dumb as a gorged Blackbird too: all
growing old!

I have lost my sister Kerrich, the only one of my family I much cared
for, or who much cared for me.

But (not to dwell on what cannot be helped, and to which my talking of
all growing old led me) I see in last week's Athenaeum great Praise of a
new Volume of Poems by Jean Ingelow.  The Reviewer talks of a 'new Poet,'
etc., quite unaware that some dozen years ago the 'new Poet' published a
Volume (as you may remember) with as distinct Indications of sweet,
fresh, and original Genius as anything he adduces from this second
Volume.  I remember writing a sort of Review, when about you at Bramford,
which I sent to Mitford, to try and give the Book a little move: but
Mitford had just quitted the Gentleman's Magazine, and I tore up my
Paper.  Your Elizabeth knows (I think) all about this Lady: who, I
suppose, is connected with Lincolnshire: for the Reviewer speaks of some
of the Poems as relating to that Coast--Shipwrecks, etc.  I was told that
Tennyson was writing a sort of Lincolnshire Idyll: I will bet on Miss
Ingelow now: he should never have left his old County, and gone up to be
suffocated by London Adulation.  He has lost that which caused the long
roll of the Lincolnshire Wave to reverberate in the measure of Locksley
Hall.  Don't believe that I rejoice like a Dastard in what I believe to
be the Decay of a Great Man: my sorrow has been so much about it that
(for one reason) I have the less cared to meet him of late years, having
nothing to say in sincere praise.  Nor do I mean that his Decay is all
owing to London, etc.  He is growing old: and I don't believe much in the
Fine Arts thriving on an old Tree: I can't think Milton's Paradise Lost
so good as his Allegro, etc.; one feels the strain of the Pump all
through: only Shakespeare--the exception to all rule--struck out Macbeth
at past fifty. {47a}

By the way, there is a new--and the best--edition {47b} of _Him_ coming
out: edited by two men (Fellows) of Cambridge.  Just the Text, with the
various readings of Folio and Quartos: scarce any notes: but suggestions
of Alteration from Pope, Theobald, Coleridge, etc., and--Spedding; who
(as I told him twenty years ago) should have done the work these men are
doing.  He also says they are well doing about _half_ what is wanted to
be done.  He should--for he could--have done all; and one Frontispiece
Portrait would have served for Author and Editor.

Come--here is a long Letter--and (as I read it over) with more _Go_ than
usually attends my old Pen now.  Let it inspire you to answer: never mind
_the Birds_:--which really suggests to me one of Dante's beautiful lines
which made me _cry_ the other Day at Sea.

   Mentre che gli occhi per la fronda verde
      Ficcava io cosi, come far suole
   Chi dietro all' uccellin la vita perde,
      Lo piu che Padre mi dicea, etc. {48a}

_To W. B. Donne_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_October_ 4/63.

MY DEAR DONNE,

Very rude of me not to have acknowledged your Tauchnitz {48b} before: but
I have been almost living in my Ship ever since: and I supposed also that
you were abroad in Norfolk.  I pitied you undergoing those dreadful
Oratorios: I never heard one that was not tiresome, and in part
ludicrous.  Such subjects are scarce fitted for Catgut.  Even Magnus
Handel--even Messiah.  He (Handel) was a good old Pagan at heart, and
(till he had to yield to the fashionable Piety of England) stuck to
Opera, and Cantatas, such as Acis and Galatea, Milton's Penseroso,
Alexander's Feast, etc., where he could revel and plunge and frolic
without being tied down to Orthodoxy.  And these are (to my mind) his
really great works: these, and his Coronation Anthems, where Human Pomp
is to be accompanied and illustrated

Now for Tauchnitz; somehow, that which you sent me is not the thing: I
don't like it half so well as my little Tauchnitz stereotype Sophocles of
1827.  The Euripides you send bears date 1846: and is certainly not so
clear to my eyes as 1827.  Never mind: don't trouble yourself further: I
shall light upon what I want one of these Days.  It is wonderful how _The
Sea_ brought up this Appetite for Greek: it likes to be called [Greek
text] and [Greek text] better than the wretched word '_Sea_,' I am sure:
and the Greeks (especially AEschylus--after Homer) are full of Seafaring
Sounds and Allusions.  I think the Murmur of the AEgean (if that is their
Sea) wrought itself into their Language.  How is it the Islandic (which I
read is our Mother Tongue) was not more Poluphloisboi-ic?

Sophocles has almost shaken my Allegiance to AEschylus.  Oh, those two
OEdipuses! but then that Agamemnon!  Well: one shall be the Handel and
'tother the Haydn; one the Michel Angelo, and 'tother the Raffaelle, of
Tragedy.  As to the famous Prometheus, I think, as I always thought, it
is somewhat over-rated for Sublimity; I can't see much in the far famed
Conception of the Hero's Character: and I doubt (_rest wanting_).

_To S. Laurence_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 7/64.

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I want to know about your two Portraits of Thackeray: the first one
(which I think Smith and Elder have) I know by the Print: I want to know
about one you last did (some two years ago?) whether you think it as good
and characteristic: and also who has it.  Frederic Tennyson sent me a
Photograph of W. M. T. old, white, massive, and melancholy, sitting in
his Library.

I am surprized almost to find how much I am thinking of him: so little as
I had seen him for the last ten years; not once for the last five.  I had
been told--by you, for one--that he was spoiled.  I am glad therefore
that I have scarce seen him since he was 'old Thackeray.'  I keep reading
his Newcomes of nights, and as it were hear him saying so much in it; and
it seems to me as if he might be coming up my Stairs, and about to come
(singing) into my Room, as in old Charlotte Street, etc., thirty years
ago. {50}

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 12/64.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . Have we exchanged a word about Thackeray since his Death?  I am
quite surprised to see how I sit moping about him: to be sure, I keep
reading his Books.  Oh, the Newcomes are fine!  And now I have got hold
of Pendennis, and seem to like that much more than when I first read it.
I keep hearing him say so much of it; and really think I shall hear his
Step up the Stairs to this Lodging as in old Charlotte Street thirty
years ago.  Really, a great Figure has sunk under Earth.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 23/64.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

You see I return with your other troubles of Term time.  Only when you
have ten spare minutes let me know how you are, etc. . . .  I have almost
wondered at myself how much occupied I have been thinking of Thackeray;
so little as I had seen of him for the last ten years, and my Interest in
him a little gone from hearing he had become somewhat spoiled: which also
some of his later writings hinted to me of themselves.  But his Letters,
and former works, bring me back the old Thackeray. . . .  I had never
read Pendennis and the Newcomes since their first appearance till this
last month.  They are wonderful; Fielding's seems to me coarse work in
comparison.  I have indeed been thinking of little this last month but of
these Books and their Author.  Of his Letters to me I have only kept some
Dozen, just to mark the different Epochs of our Acquaintance.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 31/64.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I have only Today got your Letter: have been walking out by myself in the
Seckford Almshouse Garden till 9 p.m. in a sharp Frost--with Orion
stalking over the South before me--(do you know him in India?  I forget)
have come in--drunk a glass of Porter; and am minded to answer you before
I get to Bed.  Perhaps the Porter will leave me stranded, however, before
I get to the End of my Letter.

Before this reaches you--probably before I write it--you will have heard
of Thackeray's sudden Death.  It was told me as I was walking alone in
those same Seckford Gardens on Christmas-day Night; by a
Corn-merchant--one George Manby--(do you remember him?) who came on
purpose to tell me--and to wish me in other respects a Happy Christmas.  I
have thought little else than of W. M. T. ever since--what with reading
over his Books, and the few Letters I had kept of his; and thinking over
our five and thirty years' Acquaintance as I sit alone by my Fire these
long Nights.  I had seen very little of him for these last ten years;
_nothing_ for the last five; he did not care to write; and people told me
he was become a little spoiled: by London praise, and some consequent
Egotism.  But he was a very fine Fellow.  His Books are wonderful:
Pendennis; Vanity Fair; and the Newcomes; to which compared Fielding's
seems to me coarse work.  I don't know yet how his two daughters are left
provided for; the Papers say well.  He had built and furnished a fine
House at 7 or 8000 pounds cost; which is as good a Property for them to
let or sell as any other, I suppose; and the Copyright of his Books must
also be a good Property: always supposing he had not encumbered all these
by anticipation.

I was not at all well myself for three months; but either the Doctor's
Stuff, or the sharp clear weather, or both, have set me up pretty much as
I was before.  I have nothing to tell, as usual, of People or Places; for
I have scarce stirred from this Place since my little Ship was laid up in
the middle of October.  Donne writes sometimes; I see an article of his
about the Antonines advertised in the present Edinburgh; but that you
know is out of my Line.  His second son, Mowbray, is lately married to a
Daughter (I don't know which) of Mrs. Salmon's; widow of a former Rector
here, whom your Elizabeth will remember all about, I dare say.

This time ten years I was lodging at Oxford, reading Persian with you.  I
doubt I shall never do so again; I am too lazy to turn Dictionaries over
now; and indeed had some while ceased to expect much to turn up from
them.  You are quite right, as a Scholar, to work out the Mine; but you
admit that nothing is likely to come out of such Value as from the Greek,
Latin, and English, which we have ready to our hands.  Did I tell you how
pleased I had been with Sophocles and AEschylus in my Boat this Summer?

I dare say you are quite right about my 'Birds': indeed I think I had
always told you that my Version was of no _public_ use; I only wanted a
few Copies for private use; and I wanted you to add a short Account, and
a few Notes; in which I am shy of trusting my own Irish Accuracy.  But
you have plenty of better work, and _this_ is quite as well left.

Miss Ingelow's second volume isn't half so good as her first, to my
thinking; more ambitious, with a twang of Tennyson.  I can't add to the
List you have sent of Elizabeth's Poems.

Maria C[harlesworth] was staying with my Brother at Boulge in the Autumn,
and sent a very kind message to me; I now am sorry I did not see her; but
I keep out of the way of the _Company_ at Boulge, though I am glad to see
my Brother here.  So I wish I had asked her to take the Trouble to come
and see me in my Den.  Alas! if ever you do come back, you will have to
come and see me; for I really go nowhere now.  Frederic Tennyson came to
me for a few Days, and talked of you two: he was looking very well; and
was grand and kind as before.  I hear little of Alfred.  Spedding's Bacon
seems to hang fire; they say he is disheartened at the little Interest,
and less Conviction, that his two first volumes carried; Thompson told me
they had only convinced _him_ the other way; and that _Ellis_ had long
given up Bacon's Defence before he died.

Now my sheet is filled on the strength of my own Glass of Porter--all at
a heat.  So Good Bye: ever yours, E. F. G.

_To S. Laurence_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_April_ 23/64.

DEAR LAURENCE,

I only got home last Night, from Wiltshire, where I had been to see Miss
Crabbe, daughter of the old Vicar whom you remember.  I found your two
Letters: and then your Box.  When I had unscrewed the last Screw, it was
as if a Coffin's Lid were raised; there was the Dead Man. {55}  I took
him up to my Bedroom; and when morning came, he was there--reading;
alive, and yet dead.  I am perfectly satisfied with it on the whole;
indeed, could only have suggested a very, very, slight alteration, if
any. . .

As I passed through London, I saw that wonderful Collection of Rubbish,
the late Bishop of Ely's Pictures; but I fell desperately in Love with a
Sir Joshua, a young Lady in white with a blue Sash, and a sweet blue Sky
over her sweet, noble, Head; far above Gainsboro' in its Air and
Expression.  I see in the Papers that it went for 165 pounds; which, if I
thought well to give so much for any Picture, I could almost have given,
by some means, for such a delightful Work.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_April_ 27/64.

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I will send back the Gainsboro' copy {56a} at once; I think the
Original must be one of the happiest of the Painter's; while he had
Vandyke in his Eye, with whom he was to go to Heaven. {56b}  I will not
argue how far he was superior to Reynolds in Colour; but in the Air of
Dignity and Gentility (in the better Sense) he was surely inferior; it
must be so, from the Difference of Character in the two men.  Madame
D'Arblay (Miss Burney) relates how one day when she was dining with Sir
Joshua at Richmond, she chanced to see him looking at her in a peculiar
way; she said to him, 'I know what you are thinking about.'  'Ay,' he
said, 'you may come and sit to me now whenever you please.'  They had
often met; but he at last caught _the_ phase of her which was best; but I
don't think it ever went to Canvas.  I don't think Gainsboro' could have
painted the lovely portrait at the Bishop of Ely's, slight as it was; Sir
Joshua was by much the finer Gentleman; indeed Gainsboro' was a Scamp.

* * * * *

In the summer of 1864 FitzGerald bought a small farmhouse in the
outskirts of Woodbridge, which he afterwards converted into Little
Grange.

_To George Crabbe_.

WOODBRIDGE: _July_ 31/64.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I returned yesterday from a Ten Days' Cruise to the Sussex Coast: which
was pleasant enough.  To-morrow I talk of Lowestoft and Yarmouth.

. . . Read Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, something of a very different
order [from the 'Dean's English'], deeply interesting; pathetic,
eloquent, and, I think, sincere: sincere, in not being conscious of all
the steps he took in reaching his present Place.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Aug._ 31, [1864].

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I hope you don't think I have forgotten you.  Your visit gave me a
sad sort of Pleasure, dashed with the Memory of other Days; I now see so
few People, and those all of the common sort, with whom I never talk of
our old Subjects; so I get in some measure unfitted for such converse,
and am almost saddened with the remembrance of an old contrast when it
comes.  And there is something besides; a Shadow of Death: but I won't
talk of such things: only believe I don't forget you, nor wish to be
forgotten by you.  Indeed, your kindness touched me.

I have been reading Juvenal with Translation, etc., in my Boat.  Nearly
the best things seem to me what one may call Epistles, rather than
Satires: VIII.  To Ponticus: XI.  To Persicus: and XII. XIII. and XIV to
several others: and, in these, leaving out the directly satirical Parts.
Satires III and X, like Horace's Poems, are prostituted by Parliamentary
and vulgar use, and should lie by for a while.  One sees Lucretius, I
think, in many parts; but Juvenal can't rise to Lucretius, who is, after
all, the true sublime Satirist of poor Man, and of something deeper than
his Corruptions and Vices: and he looks on all, too, with 'a Countenance
more in Sorrow than in Anger.'  By the way, I want you to tell me the
name and Title of that Essay on Lucretius {58} which you said was
enlarged and reprinted by the Author from the original Cambridge and
Oxford Essays.  I want much to get it.

There is a fine Passage in Juvenal's 6th Satire on Women: beginning line
634, 'Fingimus haec, etc.' to 650: but (as I think) leaving out lines
639, 640; because one _can_ understand without them, and they jingle
sadly with their one vowel ending.  I mention this because it occurs in a
Satire which, from its Subject, you may perhaps have little cared for.

Another Book I have had is Wesley's Journal, which I used to read, but
gave away my Copy--to you? or Robert Groome {59a} was it?  If you don't
know it, do know it; it is curious to think of this Diary of his running
almost coevally with Walpole's Letter-Diary; the two men born and dying
too within a few years of one another, and with such different Lives to
record.  And it is remarkable to read pure, unaffected, and undying,
English, while Addison and Johnson are tainted with a Style, which all
the world imitated!  Remember me to all.  Ever yours E. F. G.

'Sed genus humanum damnat caligo Futuri'--a Lucretian line from Juvenal.
{59b}

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Nov._ 11/64.

MY DEAR COWELL,

Let me hear of you whenever you have something to tell of yourself: or
indeed whenever you have a few spare minutes, and happen, to think--of
me.  I don't forget you: and 'out of sight' is not 'out of mind' with
you, and three or four more in the World.  I hope you see Donne at times:
and you must look out for old Spedding, that melancholy Ruin of the 19th
Century, with his half-white-washed Bacon.  Perhaps you will see another
Ruin--the Author of Enoch Arden.  Compare that with the Spontaneous _Go_
of Palace of Art, Mort d'Arthur, Gardener's Daughter, Locksley Hall, Will
Waterproof, Sleeping Palace, Talking Oak, and indeed, one may say, all
the two volumes of 1842.  As to Maud, I think it the best Poem, as a
whole, after 1842.

To come down to very little, from once great, Things--I don't know if
it's your coming home, or my being better this Winter, or what: but I
have caught up a long ago begun Version of my dear old _Magico_, and have
so recast it that scarce a Plank remains of the original!  Pretty
impudence: and yet all done to conciliate English, or modern, Sympathy.
This I sha'n't publish: so say (pray!) nothing of it at all--remember--only
I shall print some Copies for you and one or two more: and you and
Elizabeth will like it a great deal too much.  There is really very great
Skill in the Adaptation, and Remodelling of it.  By the bye, would you
translate _Demonio_, _Lucifer_, or _Satan_?  One of the two I take.  I
cut out all the precioso very ingeniously: and give all the
Mountain-moving, etc., in the second Act without Stage direction, so as
it may seem to pass only in the dazzled Eyes, or Fantasy, of Cyprian.  All
this is really a very difficult Job to me; not worth the Candle, I dare
say: only that you two will be pleased.  I also increase the religious
Element in the Drama; and make Cyprian outwit the Devil more cleverly
than he now does; for the Devil was certainly too clever to be caught in
his own Art.  _That_ was very good Fun for an Autodafe Audience, however.

But please say nothing of this to any one.  I should like to take up the
Vida es Sueno too in the same manner; but these plays are more difficult
than all the others put together: and I have no spur now.

How would you translate Pliny's 'Quisquis est Deus, et quacumque in
parte, totus est Sensus, totus Visus, totus Auditus, totus Animae, totus
Animi, totus Sui?' {61}

This Passage is alluded to by Calderon; but, in the manner of our old
Playwrights, I quote it in the Latin and translate.  I want to know by
you if I have done it sufficiently; and I don't send you mine, in order
that you may send me your Version freely.

Now, Good Bye: I suppose it's this rainy Day that draws out this, with
several other Letters, that had waited some while to be written.

Yours ever E. F. G.

_To R. C. Trench_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_February_ 25/65.

MY DEAR LORD,

Edward Cowell's return to England {62a} set him and me talking of old
Studies together, left off since he went to India.  And I took up three
sketched out Dramas, two of Calderon, {62b} and have licked the two
Calderons into some sort of shape of my own, without referring to the
Original.  One of them goes by this Post to your Grace; and when I tell
you the other is no other than your own 'Life's a Dream,' you won't
wonder at my sending the present one on Trial, both done as they are in
the same lawless, perhaps impudent, way.  I know you would not care who
did these things, so long as they were well done; but one doesn't wish to
meddle, and in so free-and-easy a way, with a Great Man's Masterpieces,
and utterly fail: especially when two much better men have been before
one.  One excuse is, that Shelley and Dr. Trench only took parts of these
plays, not caring surely--who can?--for the underplot and buffoonery
which stands most in the way of the tragic Dramas.  Yet I think it is as
a whole, that is, the whole main Story, that these Plays are capital; and
therefore I have tried to present that whole, leaving out the rest, or
nearly so; and altogether the Thing has become so altered one way or
another that I am afraid of it now it's done, and only send you one Play
(the other indeed is not done printing: neither to be published), which
will be enough if it is an absurd Attempt.  For the Vida is not so good
even, I doubt: dealing more in the Heroics, etc.

I tell Donne he is too partial a Friend; so is Cowell: Spedding, I think,
wouldn't care.  So, as you were very kind about the other Plays, and love
Calderon (which I doubt argues against me), I send you _my_ Magician.

You will not mind if I blunder in addressing you; in which I steered a
middle course between the modes Donne told me; and so, probably, come to
the Ground!

_To John Allen_.

MARKET HILL: IPSWICH. {63}
_April_ 10/65.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

I was much obliged to you for your former Letters; and now send you the
second Play.  This I don't suppose you'll like as well as the first:
perhaps not at all; it is rather 'Ercles vein' I doubt.  I wish to know
however from you what you do think of it; because if it seem to you at
all preposterous, I shall not send it to some others: but leave them with
the first, which really does please those I wished it to please, with its
fine Story and Moral.  If you like what I now send, I will send you a
Copy of Both stitched together, and another copy to your Cousin: and
indeed to any one else you think might be pleased with it.

I am indulging in the expensive amusement of Building, though not on a
very large scale.  It _is_ very pleasant, certainly, to see one's little
Gables and Chimnies mount into Air and occupy a Place in the Landscape.

There is a duller Memoir than the 'Lady of Quality,' Miss Lucy Aitken's
Letters, etc.  You will find the Private Life of an Eastern Queen a good
little Book.  I have now got Carlyle's two last volumes of Frederick: of
which I have only read the latter Part; I don't know whether I can read
through the Wars and Battles, which are said to be very fine.

The piece of Literature I really could benefit Posterity with, I do
believe, is an edition of that wonderful and aggravating Clarissa
Harlowe; and this I would effect with a pair of Scissors only.  It would
not be a bit too long as it is, if it were all equally good; but pedantry
comes in, and might, I think, be cleared away, leaving the remainder one
of _the great_, _original_, _Works of the World_! in this Line.  Lovelace
is the wonderful character, for Wit: and there is some grand Tragedy too.
And nobody reads it!  Ever yours,

E. F. G.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

[1865].

MY DEAR LADY,

I answer you thus directly because I would stick in a Bit of a Letter
from Thompson of Cambridge: which relates to a question I asked him weeks
ago, as I told E. B. C. I would.

You must not think I was in a hurry to have my Play praised: I was really
fearful of its being bombastic.  You are so enthusiastic in your old and
kind Regards and Memories that I can scarce rely on you for a cool
Judgment in the matter.  But I gather from E. B. C. that he was not
struck with what I doubted: and I am very glad, at any rate, that you are
very well pleased, both of you.

E. B. C. is quite right about obscurity of Phrase: which is inexcusable
unless where the Passion of the Speakers makes such utterance natural.
This is very often not the case in the Plays, I know: and the Language,
as he says, becomes obscure from elaborate Brevity.

What you tell of the Music in the Air at your Father's Death--Oh, how
Frederic Tennyson would open all his Eyes at this!  For he lives in a
World of Spirits--Swedenborg's World, which you would not approve; which
I cannot sympathize with: but yet I admire the Titanic old Soul so
resolutely blind to the Philosophy of the Day.

Oh, I think England would be much better for E. B. C. and you: but I
can't say anything against what he thinks the Duty chalked out for him.  I
don't believe the English Rule will hold in India: but, meanwhile, a good
Man may think he must do what Good he can there, come what may of it.
There is also Good to be done in England!

The Wind is still very 'stingy' though the Sun shines, and though it
blows from the West.  So we are all better at our homes for the present.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To W. B. Donne_.

RAMSGATE: _August_ 27, [1865].

MY DEAR DONNE,

Your letter found me here, where I have been a week cruising about with
my old Brother Peter.  To morrow we leave--for Calais, as we propose;
just to touch French Soil, and drink a Bottle of French Wine in the old
Town: then home again to Woodbridge as fast as we may.  For thither goes
William Airy, partly in hopes of meeting me: he says he is much shaken by
the dangerous illness he had this last Spring: and thinks, truly enough,
that our chances of meeting in this World sensibly diminish.

You must not talk of my kindness to you at Lowestoft: when all the good
is on your side, going out of your way to see me.  Really it makes me
ashamed.

Together with your Letter, I found a very kind one from Mrs. Kemble, who
took the trouble to write only to tell me how well she liked the Plays.  I
know that Good Nature would not affect her Judgment (which I very
honestly think too favourable), but it was Good Nature made her write to
tell me.

Don't forget to sound Murray at some good opportunity about a Selection
from Crabbe.  Of course he won't let me do it, though I could do it
better than any he would be likely to employ: for you know I rely on my
Appreciation of what others do, not on what I can do myself.

The 'Parcel' you write of has not been sent me here: but I shall find it
when I return, and will write to you again.  I puzzle my Brains to
remember what the '_Conscript_' is.

I have been reading, and reducing to one volume from two (_more meo_), a
trashy Book, 'Bernard's Recollections of the Stage,' with some good
recollections of the Old Actors, up to Macklin and Garrick.  But, of all
people's, one can't trust Actors' Stories.  In 'Lethe,' where your
Garrick figures in Sir Geoffrey, also figured Woodward, as 'The Fine
Gentleman'; so I think, at least, is the Title of a very capital
mezzotint I have of him in Character,

Oh! famous is your Story of Lord Chatham and the Bishops; {68} be sure
you set it afloat again in print.

You don't tell me if Trench be recovered: but I shall conclude from your
Silence that, at any rate, he is not now seriously ill.

Now I hear my good Brother come in from Morning Mass, and we shall have
Breakfast.  He is really capital to sail about with.  I read your letter
yesterday while sitting out on a Bench with her--his Wife--a brave Woman,
of the O'Dowd sort; and she wanted to know all about you and yours.  We
like Ramsgate very much: genial air: pleasant Country: good Harbour,
Piers, etc.: and the Company, though overflowing, not showy, nor vulgar:
but seemingly come to make the most of a Holiday.  I am surprized how
little of the Cockney, in its worse aspect, is to be seen.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Septr._ 5/65.

MY DEAR COWELL,

Let me hear of you: I don't forget, though I don't see, you.  Nor am I so
wrapt up in my Ship as not to have many a day on which I should be very
glad to dispense with her and have you over here: but I can't well make
sure what day: sometimes I ask one man to go, sometimes another, and so
all is cut up.  Besides I was away six weeks in all at Lowestoft; then a
fortnight at Ramsgate, Dover, Calais, etc.  When the apple [Greek text]
{69a}--then my Ship will be laid up, and one more Summer of mine
departed, and then I hope you will come over to talk over many things.

Read Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt: which you won't like, because
of some latitude in Religious thought, and also because of some vulgar
_slang_, such as Schoolboys, and American Women use, and it is now the
bad fashion for even English Ladies to adopt.  But the Book is worth
reading notwithstanding this, and making allowance for a Lady or
Gentleman seeing all rose-colour in a new Pet or Plaything.  On sending
the Book back to the Library this morning I quote out of it something
about Oriental Poetry which you may know well enough but I was not so
conscious of.  In a Love-song where the Lover declines a Physician for
the wound which _the Wind_ (Love) has caused, he says 'For only _he_ who
has hurt can cure me.'   'N.B. The masculine pronoun is always used
instead of the feminine in Poetry, out of decorum: sometimes even in
conversation.' {69b}  (It being as forbidden to talk of women as to see
them, etc.)

I was very pleased with Calais, which remains the 'vieille France' of my
Childhood.

Donne came to see me for a Day at Lowestoft, the same 'vieil Donne' also
of my Boyhood.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To John Allen_.

MARKETHILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Nov._ 1/65.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

Let me hear how you and yours are: it is now a long [time] since we
exchanged Letters.  G. Crabbe wrote me you were corresponding with a very
different person: the Editor of the Times.  I never see that nor any
other Paper but the good old Athenaeum.  G. Crabbe also said you were at
the Norwich Congress.  Then why didn't you come here?  He said the Bishop
of Oxford, whom he had never met before, met him at Lord Walsingham's,
and shook him so cordially by the hand, and pressed him so for a visit to
Oxford, that he (G. C.) rather thought he (Sam) deserved the Epithet
usually added to his Name.  Perhaps, however, the Bishop _did_ feel for a
Grandson of the Poet.

I have no more to tell you of myself this past Summer than for so many
Summers past.  Only sailing about, Lowestoft, Ramsgate, Dover, Calais,
etc.  I was very pleased indeed with Calais; just as I remember it forty
years ago except for the Soldiers' Uniform.

Duncan wrote me not a very cheerful Letter some while ago: he was unwell,
of Cold and rheumatism, I think.  Of other Friends I know nothing: but am
going to write my annual Letters to them.  What a State of things to come
to!  How one used to wonder, hearing our predecessors talk in that way,
something!  But I don't think our successors wonder if we talk so; for
they seem to begin Life with indifference, instead of ending it.

My house is not yet finished: two rooms have taken about five months:
which is not slow for Woodbridge.  To day I have been catching Cold in
looking at some Trees planted--'factura Nepotibus umbram.'

Now this precious Letter can't go to-night for want of Envelope; and in
half an hour two Merchants are coming to eat Oysters and drink Burton
ale.  I would rather be alone, and smoke my own pipe in peace over one of
Trollope's delightful Novels, 'Can you forgive her?'

Now, my dear Allen, here is enough of me, for your sake as well as mine.
But let me hear something from you.  All good Remembrances to the Wife
and those of your Children who remember yours ever, E. F. G.

[WOODBRIDGE]
_Decr._ 3/65.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

I enclose you two prints which may amuse you to look at and keep.

I have a wonderful Museum of such scraps of Portrait; about once a year a
Man sends me a Portfolio of such things.  But my chief Article is
Murderers; and I am now having a Newgate Calendar from London.  I don't
ever wish to see and hear these things tried; but, when they are in
print, I like to sit in Court then, and see the Judges, Counsel,
Prisoners, Crowd: hear the Lawyers' Objections, the Murmur in the Court,
etc.

   The Charge is prepared; the Lawyers are met,
   The Judges are rang'd, a terrible show.

De Soyres came here the other Day, and we were talking of you; he said
you had invited Newman to your house.  A brave thing, if you did.  I
think his Apology very noble; and himself quite honest, so far as he can
see himself.  The Passage in No. 7 of the Apology where he describes the
State of the World as wholly irreflective of its Creator unless you
turn--to Popery--is very grand.

Now I probably sha'n't write to you again before Christmas: so let me
wish you and Mrs. Allen and your Family a Happy time of it.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

I was very disappointed in Miss Berry's Correspondence; one sees a Woman
of Sense, Taste, Good Breeding, and I suppose, Good Looks; but what more,
to make three great Volumes of!  Compare her with Trench's Mother.  And
with all her perpetual travels to improve health and spirits (which
lasted perfectly well to near ninety) one would have been more interested
if there were one single intimation of caring about any Body but herself,
helping one poor Person, etc.

I don't know if she or Mrs. Delany is dullest.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 15/66.

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

To-day's Post brings me a Letter from Robert Groome, which tells me (on
'Times' authority) that you are Master of Trinity.  Judging by your last
Letter, I suppose this was unexpected by yourself: I have no means of
knowing whether it was expected by others beside those who voted you to
the Honour.  For I had heard nothing further of the whole matter, even of
Whewell's accident, than you yourself told me.  Well, at our time of
Life, any very vehement Congratulations are, I suppose, irrelevant on
both sides.  But I am very sure I do congratulate you heartily, if you
are yourself gratified.  Whether you are glad of the Post itself or not,
you must, I think, be gratified with the Confidence in your Scholarship
and Character which has made your Society elect you.  And so far one may
unreservedly congratulate you. . . .

To-day I was looking at the Carpenters, etc., carrying away Chips, etc.,
of a Tree I had cut down: and, coming home, read--

   [Greek text] {74}--

Whose Line?--Certainly not of

Yours ever sincerely, E. F. G.

_To John Allen_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE,
_March_ 19 [1866].

MY DEAR ALLEN,

You shall hear a very little about me; and you shall tell me a very
little about yourself?  I forget when I last wrote to you, or heard from
you: I suppose, about the end of Autumn.  Here have I been ever since,
without stirring further than Ipswich: and seeing nobody you know except
R. Groome once.  He wrote me the other day to announce that Thompson was
Master of Trinity; an Honour quite unexpected by Thompson himself, I
conclude, seeing that he himself had written to me only a Fortnight
before, telling me of Whewell's Disaster, and sincerely hoping for his
Recovery, from a Dread of a new King Log or King Stork, he said.  He also
said something of coming here at Easter: which now, I suppose, he won't
be able to do.  I have written to congratulate him in a sober way on his
Honours; for, at our Time of Life, I think exultation would be
unseasonable on either side.  He will make a magnanimous Master, I
believe; doing all the Honours of his Station well, if he have health.

Spedding wrote me a kind long Letter some while ago.  Duncan tells me
Cameron has had a slight Paralysis.  Death seems to rise like a Wall
against one now whichever way one looks.  When I read Boswell and other
Memoirs now, what presses on me most is--All these people who talked and
acted so busily are gone.  It is said that when Talma advanced upon the
Stage his Thought on facing the Audience was, that they were all soon to
be Nothing.

I bought Croker's Boswell; which I find good to refer to, but not to
read; so hashed up it is with interpolations.  Besides, one feels somehow
that a bad Fellow like Croker mars the Good Company he introduces.  One
should stop with Malone, who was a good Gentleman: only rather too loyal
to Johnson, and so unjust to any who dared hint a fault in him.  Yet
_they_ were right.  Madame D'Arblay, who was also so vext with Mrs.
Piozzi, admits that she had a hard time with Johnson in his last two
years; so irritable and violent he became that she says People would not
ask _him_ when they invited all the rest of the Party.

Why, my Paper is done, talking about these dead and gone whom you and I
have only known in Print; and yet as well so as most we know in person.  I
really find my Society in such Books; all the People seem humming about
me.  But now let me hear of you, Allen: and of Wife and Family.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
[_March_, 1866.]

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

I should write 'My dear Master' but I don't know if you are yet
installed.  However, I suppose my Letter, so addressed, will find you and
not the Old Lion now stalking in the Shades. . . .

In burning up a heap of old Letters, which one's Executors and Heirs
would make little of, I came upon several of Morton's from Italy: so good
in Parts that I have copied those Parts into a Blank Book.  When he was
in his money Troubles I did the same from many other of his Letters, and
Thackeray asked Blackwood to give ten pounds for them for his Magazine.
But we heard no more of them.

I have the usual Story to tell of myself: middling well: still here,
pottering about my House, in which I expect an invalid Niece; and
preparing for my Ship in June.  William Airy talks of coming to me soon.
I am daily expecting the Death of a Sister in law, a right good Creature,
who I thought would outlive me a dozen years, and should rejoice if she
could.  Things look serious about one.  If one only could escape easily
and at once!  For _I_ think the Fun is over: but that should not be.  May
you flourish in your high Place, my dear Master (now I say) for this long
while.

[_June_, 1866.]

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

I won't say that I should have gone to Ely under any Circumstances,
though it is the last Place I have been to stay at with a Friend: three
years ago!  And all my Stays there were very pleasant indeed: and I do
not the less thank you for all your Constancy and Kindness.  But one is
got down yet deeper in one's Way of Life: of which enough has been said.

William Airy was to have come here about this time: and him I am obliged
to put off because another old Fellow Collegian, Duncan, {77} who has
scarce stirred from his Dorsetshire Parsonage these twenty years, was
seized with a Passion to see me just once more, he says: and he is now
with me: a Hypochondriack Man, nervous, and restless, with a vast deal of
uncouth Humour. . . .

My Ship is afloat, with a new Irish Ensign; but I have scarce been about
with her yet owing to 'Mr. Wesley's Troubles.' {78a}

Only yesterday I took down my little Tauchnitz Sophocles to carry to Sea
with me; and made Duncan here read--

   [Greek text], {78b} etc.

and began to blubber a little at

   [Greek text], etc.

in the other Great Play. {78c}  The Elgin Marbles, and something more,
began to pass before my Eyes.

I believe I write all this knowing you are at Ely: where I suppose you
are more at Leisure than on your Throne in Trinity.  But no doubt your
Tyranny follows you there too; post Equitem and all.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: Friday
[_June_, 1866].

MY DEAR COWELL,

I got your new Address from your Brother a Fortnight ago.  You don't
write to me for the very good reason that you have so much to do: I don't
write to you because I have nothing to do, and so nothing to tell you of.
My idle reading all goes down to a few Memoirs and such things: I am not
got down to Miss Braddon and Mrs. Wood yet, and I believe never shall:
not that I think this a merit: for it would show more Elasticity of Mind
to find out and make something out of the Genius in them.  But it is too
late for me to try and retrace the 'Salle des pas perdus' of years; I
have not been very well, and more and more 'smell the Mould above the
Rose' as Hood wrote of himself.  But I don't want to talk of this.

You are very good to talk of sparing a Day for me when you come down.  I
will be sure to be at home any Day, or Days, next week.  I can give you
Bed and Board as you know: and a Boat Sail on the River if you like.  Why
I don't go over to you I have written and spoken of enough--all I can, if
not satisfactorily: only don't think it is indolence, Neglect, or
Distaste for you, or any of yours. . . .

I haven't, I think, taken in your Sanskrit morsel as yet, for I am called
about this morning on some Furniture Errands: and yet I want to post this
Letter To-day that you may have it this week.

I still think I shall take a Tauchnitz Sophocles with me to Sea, once
more to read the two OEdipuses, and Philoctetes; perhaps more carefully
than before; perhaps not!  It is stupid not to get up those three noble
Pieces as well as one can.

I have not yet done my house: and, when I write of Furniture, it is
because I want to get so much ready as will suffice for an Invalid Niece
who wishes to come with her Maid by the End of June, or the Beginning of
July.  Your old opposite Neighbour Mason is my Apollo in these matters: I
find him a very clever Fellow, and so well inclined to me that every one
else says he can scarce make money of what he sells me.  He has _humour_
too.

I think you and Elizabeth should one day come and stay in this new House,
which will be really very pleasant.  As far as I am concerned, I sha'n't
have much to do with it, I believe; but some one will inherit, and--sell
it!

I want you to choose a Lot of my Things to be bequeathed you: Books,
Pictures, Furniture.  You mustn't think I prematurely deck myself in
Sables for my own Funeral; but it happens that I sent the rough Draft of
a Will to my Lawyer only three days ago.

My Brother John so much wants a Copy of Elizabeth's Verses to my Sister
Isabella in other Days.

This time twenty years you were going to me at Boulge Cottage: this time
ten years you were preparing for India.

Adieu, Love to the Lady.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

LOWESTOFT: _July_ 27 [1866].

MY DEAR THOMPSON,

Your welcome Letter was forwarded to me here To day.

I feel sure that the Lady I once saw at the Deanery is all you say; and
you believe of me, as I believe of myself, that I don't deal in
Compliment, unless under very strong Compulsion.  I suppose, as Master of
Trinity you could not do otherwise than marry, and so keep due State and
Hospitality there: and I do think you could not have found one fitter to
share, and do, the honours.  And if (as I also suppose) there is Love, or
Liking, or strong Sympathy, or what not? why, all looks well.  Be it so!

I had not heard of Spedding's entering into genteel House-keeping till
your Letter told me of it.  I suppose he will be a willing Victim to his
Kinsfolk.

A clerical Brother in law of mine has lost his own whole Fortune in four
of these Companies which have gone to smash.  Nor his own only.  For,
having, when he married my Sister, insisted on having half her Income
tied to him by Settlement, _that_ half lies under Peril from the 'Calls'
made upon him as Shareholder.

   At Genus Humanum damnat Caligo Futuri.

So I, trusting in my Builder's Honesty, have a Bill sent in about one
third bigger than it should be.

All which rather amuses me, on the whole, though I spit out a Word now
and then: and indeed am getting a Surveyor to overhaul the Builder: a
hopeless Process, I believe all the while.

Meanwhile, I go about in my little Ship, where I do think I have two
honest Fellows to deal with.

We have just been boarding a Woodbridge Vessel that we met in these
Roads, and drinking a Bottle of Blackstrap round with the Crew.

With me just at present is my Brother Peter, for whose Wife (a capital
Irishwoman, of the Mrs. O'Dowd Type) my Paper is edged with Black.  No
one could be a better Husband than he; no one more attentive and anxious
during her last Illness, more than a year long; and, now all is over, I
never saw him in better Health or Spirits.  Men are not inconsolable for
elderly Wives; as Sir Walter Scott, who was not given to caustic
Aphorisms, observed long ago.

When I was sailing about the Isle of Wight, Dorsetshire, etc., I read my
dear old Sophocles again (sometimes omitting the nonsense-verse Choruses)
and thought how much I should have liked to have them commented along in
one of your Lectures.  All that is now over with you: but you will look
into the Text now and then.  I have now got Munro's Lucretius on board
again.  Why is it that I never can take up with Horace--so sensible,
elegant, agreeable, and sometimes even grand?

Some one gave me the July Number of the Cornhill to read the 'Loss of the
London' in; and very well worth reading it is.  But there is also the
Beginning of a Story that I am sure must be by Annie Thackeray--capital
and wonderful.  I forget the name.

Now I won't finish this Second Sheet--all with such Scraps as the
foregoing.  But do believe how sincerely and truly I wish you well in
your new Venture.  And so I will shut up, my dear Thompson, for the
present.  No man can have more reason to wish you a good Return for your
long generous Kindness than your old Friend,

E. F. G.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: _August_ 13/66.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I think you have given me up as a bad Job: and I can't blame you.  I have
been expecting to hear of you in these parts: though, had it been so, I
doubt if I should have been here to meet you.  For the last six weeks I
have scarce been at home; what with sailing to the Isle of Wight, Norfolk
Coast, staying at Lowestoft, etc.  And now I am just off again to the
latter place, having only returned here on Saturday.  Nor can I say when
I shall be back here for any long while: the Kerriches are at Lowestoft;
and I have yet one or two more Sea-trips to make before October consigns
me once more to Cold, Indoor Solitude, Melancholy, and Illhealth.

My Companion on board has been Sophocles, as he was three years ago, I
find.  I am even now going to hunt up some one-volume Virgil to take with
me.  Horace I never can care about, in spite of his Good Sense, Elegance,
and occasional Force.  He never made my Eyes wet as Virgil does.

When I was about Cromer Coast, I was reading Windham's Diary: well worth
reading, as one of the most honest; but with little else in it than that.
You would scarcely guess from it that he was a man of any Genius, as yet
I suppose he was.

Somehow I fancy you must be travelling abroad!  Else surely I should have
heard something of you.  Well: I must anyhow enclose this Letter, or
direct it, to your Mother's or Brother's at Ipswich.  Do let me hear of
yourself and Elizabeth, and believe that I do not forget you, nor cease
to be

Yours very sincerely
EDWARD FITZGERALD.

LOWESTOFT: _August_ 19/66.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I don't wish you to think I am in Woodbridge all this while since your
Note came.  It was forwarded to me here, where I have been since I wrote
to you a week ago.  The fact is, I had promised to return on finding that
the Kerriches were to be here.  So, here I am: living on board my little
Ship: sometimes taking them out for a Sail: sometimes accompanying them
in a walk.  In other respects, I am very fond of this Place, which I have
known and frequented these forty years; till the last three years in
company with my Sister Kerrich, who has helped to endear it to me.  I
believe I shall be here, off and on, some while longer; as my Brother
Peter (who has lately lost a capital Wife) is coming to sail about with
me.  Should I be at Woodbridge for some days I will let you know.

Do you see 'Squire Allenby,' as the folks at Felixtow Ferry call him?  If
so, ask him why he doesn't sometimes sail here with his ship; he would
like it, I fancy: and everybody seems to like him.

Only yesterday I finished reading the Electra.  Before that, Ajax; which
is well worth re-reading too.  I am sorry to find I have only Antigone
left of all the precious Seven; a lucid Constellation indeed!  I suppose
I must try Euripides after this; some few of his Plays.

This time ten years--a month ago--we were all lounging about in the
hayfield before your Mother's House at Rushmere.  I do not forget these
things: nor cease to remember them with a sincere, sad, and affectionate
interest: the very sincerity of which prevents me from attempting to
recreate them.  This I wish you and yours, who have been so kind to me,
to believe.

I am going to run again to the Coast of Norfolk--as far as Wells--to
wander about Holkham, if the Weather permit.  We have had too much Wind
and Wet to make such excursions agreeable: for, when one reached the
Places by Sea, the Rain prevented one's going about on Shore to look
about.  But now that there has been rather a better look-out of Weather
for the last few Days, and that--

   [Greek text]-- {86}

I shall try again for two or three Days.  How do you translate [Greek
text] here?

Ever yours, E. F. G.

LOWESTOFT still!  _Septr._ 4 [1866].

MY DEAR COWELL,

Still here, you see!  Till the end of last week I had my Kerrich people
here; I am now expecting my Brother Peter again: he has lately lost his
capital Wife, and flies about between Ireland and England for Company and
Diversion of Thought.  I am also expecting Mowbray Donne over from
Yarmouth this week.

I wonder if you ever would come over here, and either Bed and Board in my
little Ship, or on Shore?  Anyhow, do write me a line to tell me about
yourself--yourselves--and do not think I am indifferent to you.

I have been reading Euripides (in my way) but, as heretofore do not take
greatly to him.  He is always prosy, whereas (except in the matter of
funeral Lamentations, Condolence, etc., which I suppose the Greek
Audience expected--as I suppose they also expected the little sententious
truism at the end of every Speech), except in these respects, Sophocles
always goes ahead, and makes his Dialogue act in driving on the Play.  He
always makes the most of his Story too: Euripides not often.  A
remarkable instance of this is in his Heraclidae (one of the better
Plays, I think), where Macaria is to be sacrificed for the common good:
but one hears no more of her: and a fine opportunity is lost when Jocasta
{87a} insults Eurystheus whom they have conquered, and is never told that
that Conquest is at the cost of her Grand-daughter's Life--a piece of
Irony which Sophocles would not have forgotten, I think.  I have not yet
read over Rhesus, Hippolytus, Medea, Ion, or the Iphigenias; altogether,
the Phoenissae is the best of those I have read; the interview between
Jocasta and her two sons, before the Battle, very good.  There is really
Humour and Comedy in the Servant's Account of Hercules' conviviality in
Admetus' House of Mourning.  I thought the story of the Bacchae poorly
told: but some good descriptive passages.

In the midst of Euripides, I was seized with a Passion to return to
Sophocles, and read the two OEdipuses again.  Oh, how immeasurably
superior!  In dramatic Construction, Dialogue, and all!  How can they
call Euripides [Greek text], {87b} putting a few passages of his against
whole Dramas of the other, who also can show sentence for sentence more
moving than any Euripides wrote.

But I want to read these Plays once with some very accurate Guide, oral
or printed.  I mean Sophocles; I don't care to be accurate with the
other.  Can you recommend any Edition--not too German?  I should write to
Thompson about it; but I suppose he is busy with Marriage coming on.  I
mean, the present Master of Trinity, who is engaged to the widow of Dean
Peacock; a very capital Lady to preside as Queen of Trinity Lodge.

I have also been visiting dear old Virgil; his Georgics, and the 6th and
8th Books of the AEneid.  I could now take them up and read them both
again.  Pray look at lines 407-415 of Book VIII--the poor Matron kindling
her early fire--so Georgic! so Virgilian! so unsuited, or
disproportionate, to the Thing it illustrates.

Here is a long Letter--of the old Sort, I suppose.  All these Books come
back to me with Summer and the Sea: in another Month all will be gone
together!--I look with Terror toward Winter, though I have not to
encounter one, at any rate, of the three Giants which old Mrs. Bloomfield
said were coming upon her--Winter, Want, and Sickness. {88}

Pray remember me, in spite of all practical Forgetfulness, to Wife and
Friends.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To F. Tennyson_.

WOODBRIDGE: _Jan._ 29/67.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

Let me hear from you one Day.  I would send you my MS. Book of Morton's
Letters: but I scarce know if the Post would carry it to you; though not
so very big: and I am still less sure that you would ever return it to
me.  And what odds if you didn't?  It might as well die in your
Possession as in mine.

In answer to my yearly Letter to Alfred and Co. I heard (from Mrs.) that
they were about to leave Freshwater, frightened away by Hero-worshippers,
etc., and were going to a Solitude called Greyshott Hall, Haslemere;
which, I am told, is in Hants.  Whether they go to settle there I don't
know.  Lucretius' Death is thought to be too free-spoken for Publication,
I believe; not so much in a religious, as an amatory, point of View.  I
should believe Lucretius more likely to have expedited his Departure
because of Weariness of Life and Despair of the System, than because of
any Love-philtre.  I wrote also my yearly Letter to Carlyle, begging my
compliments to his Wife: who, he replies, died, in a very tragical way,
last April.  I have since heard that the Papers reported all the
Circumstances.  So, if one lives so much out of the World as I do, it
seems better to give up that Ghost altogether.  Old Spedding has written
a Pamphlet about 'Authors and Publishers'; showing up, or striving to
show up, the Publishers' system.  He adduces his own Edition of Bacon as
a sample of their mismanagement, in respect of too bulky Volumes, etc.
But, as he says, Macaulay and Alison are still bulkier; yet they sell.
The truth is that a solemnly-inaugurated new Edition of all Bacon was not
wanted.  The Philosophy is surely superseded; not a Wilderness of
Speddings can give men a new interest in the Politics and Letters.  The
Essays will no doubt always be in request, like Shakespeare.  But I am
perhaps not a proper Judge of these high matters.  How should I? who have
just, to my great sorrow, finished 'The Woman in White' for the third
time, once every last three Winters.  I wish Sir Percival Clyde's Death
were a little less of the minor Theatre sort; then I would swallow all
the rest as a wonderful Caricature, better than so many a sober Portrait.
I really think of having a Herring-lugger I am building named 'Marian
Halcombe,' the brave Girl in the Story.  Yes, a Herring-lugger; which is
to pay for the money she costs unless she goes to the Bottom: and which
meanwhile amuses me to consult about with my Sea-folks.  I go to
Lowestoft now and then, by way of salutary Change: and there smoke a Pipe
every night with a delightful Chap, who is to be Captain.  I have been,
up to this time, better than for the last two winters: but feel a Worm in
my head now and then, for all that.  You will say, only a Maggot.  Well;
we shall see.  When I go to Lowestoft, I take Montaigne with me; very
comfortable Company.  One of his Consolations for _The Stone_ is, that it
makes one less unwilling to part with Life.  Oh, you think that it didn't
need much Wisdom to suggest that?  Please yourself, Ma'am.  January, just
gone!  February, only twenty-eight Days: then March with Light till six
p.m.: then April with a blush of Green on the Whitethorn hedge: then May,
Cuckoos, Nightingales, etc.; then June, Ship launched, and nothing but
Ship till November, which is only just gone.  The Story of our Lives from
Year to Year.  This is a poor letter: but I won't set The Worm fretting.
Let me hear how you are: and don't be two months before you do so.

_To W. B. Donne_.

WOODBRIDGE: _Febr._ 15 [1867].

MY DEAR DONNE,

I came home yesterday from a week's Stay at Lowestoft.  As to the
Athenaeum, {91} I would bet that the last Sentence was tacked on by the
Editor: for it in some measure contradicts the earlier part of the
Article.

When your letter was put into my hands, I happened to be reading
Montaigne, L. II. Ch. 8, De l'Art de Conferer, where at the end he refers
to Tacitus; the only Book, he says, he had read consecutively for an hour
together for ten years.  He does not say very much: but the Remarks of
such a Man are worth many Cartloads of German Theory of Character, I
think: their Philology I don't meddle with.  I know that Cowell has
discovered they are all wrong in their Sanskrit.  Montaigne never doubts
Tacitus' facts: but doubts his Inferences; well, if I were sure of his
Facts, I would leave others to draw their Inferences.  I mean, if I were
Commentator, certainly: and I think if I were Historian too.  Nothing is
more wonderful to me than seeing such Men as Spedding, Carlyle, and I
suppose Froude, straining Fact to Theory as they do, while a
scatter-headed Paddy like myself can keep clear.  But then so does the
Mob of Readers.  Well, but I believe in the Vox Populi of two hundred
Years: still more, of two thousand.  And, whether we be right or wrong,
we prevail: so, however much wiser are the Builders of Theory, their
Labour is but lost who build: they can't reason away Richard's Hump, nor
Cromwell's Ambition, nor Henry's Love of a new Wife, nor Tiberius'
beastliness.  Of course, they had all their Gleams of Goodness: but we of
the Mob, if we have any Theory at all, have that which all Mankind have
seen and felt, and know as surely as Day-light; that Power will tempt and
spoil the Best.

Well, but what is all this Lecture to you for?  Why, I think you rather
turn to the re-actionary Party about these old Heroes.  So I say, however
right you may be, leave us, the many-headed, if not the wise-headed, to
go our way, only making the Text of Tacitus as clear for us to flounder
about in as you can.  That, anyhow, must be the first Thing.  Something
of the manners and customs of the Times we want also: some Lights from
other contemporary Authors also: and then, 'Gentlemen, you will now
consider your Verdict, and please yourselves.'

Can't you act on Spedding's Advice and have your Prolegomena separate, if
considerable in size?  I don't doubt its Goodness: but you know how, when
one wants to take a Volume of an Author on Travel, Ship-board, etc., how
angry one is with the Life, Commentary, etc., which takes up half the
first volume.  This we don't complain of in George III. because he is not
a Classic, and your Athenaeum Critic admits that yours is the best Part
of the Business by far.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

'_Scandal_'; LOWESTOFT, _June_ 17 [1867].

MY DEAR COWELL,

I wrote to Elizabeth, I think, to congratulate you both on the result of
the Election: I have since had your Letter: you will not want me to
repeat what, without my ever having written or said, you will know that I
feel.  I wrote to Thompson on the subject, and have had a very kind
Letter from him.

Now you will live at Cambridge among the Learned; but, I repeat, you
would rather live among the Ignorant.  However, your Path is cut out for
you: and, to be sure, it is a more useful and proper one for you than the
cool sequestered one which one might like to travel.

I am here in my little Ship--cool and sequestered enough, to be sure--with
no Company but my Crew of Two, and my other--Captain of the Lugger now a-
building: a Fellow I never tire of studying--If he _should_ turn out
knave, I shall have done with all Faith in my own Judgment: and if he
should go to the Bottom of the Sea in the Lugger--I sha'n't cry for the
Lugger.

Well, but I have other Company too--Don Quixote--the 4th Part: where
those Snobs, the Duke and Duchess--(how vulgar Great Folks then, as now!)
make a Fool and Butt of him.  Cervantes should have had more respect for
his own Creation: but, I suppose, finding that all the Great Snobs could
only _laugh_ at the earlier part, he thought he had better humour them.
This very morning I read the very verses you admired to me twenty years
ago--

   Ven muerte tan escondida, etc.

They are quoted ironically in Part IV. Lib. VII. Ch. 38.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

WOODBRIDGE: _Oct._ 12 [1867].

MY DEAR COWELL,

When you have leisure you will let me know of your being settled at
Cambridge?  I also want to have your exact Address because I want to send
you the Dryden and Crabbe's Life I promised you.  At present you are busy
with your Inaugural Address, I suppose; beside that you feel scarce at
home yet in your new Quarters.

Mr. Allenby told me on Wednesday that Mrs. Charlesworth was really up
again, and even got to Cambridge.  Please to remember me to her, and to
all your Party.

My Ship is still afloat: but I have scarce used her during the last cold
weather.  I was indeed almost made ill sleeping two nights in that cold
Cabin.  I may, however, run to Lowestoft and back; but by the end of next
week I suppose she (the Ship) will be laid up in the Mud; my Men will
have eaten the Michaelmas Goose which I always regale them with on
shutting up shop; and I may come home to my Fire here to read 'The Woman
in White' and play at Patience:--which (I mean the Game at Cards so
called) I now do by myself for an hour or two every night.  Perhaps old
Montaigne may drop in to chat with and comfort me: but Sophocles, Don
Quixote, and Boccaccio--I think I must leave them with their Halo of Sea
and Sunshine about them.  I have, however, found the second volume of
Sophocles; and may perhaps return to look for Ajax and Deianeira.

Adieu: E. F. G.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_October_ 28 [1867],

Now, MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I have put on a new Goose-quill Nib, on purpose to write my best MS. to
you.  But the new Nib has very little to say for me: the old Story:
dodging about in my Ship for these last five months: indeed during all
that time not having lain, I believe, for three consecutive Nights in
Christian Sheets.  But now all that is over: this very day is my little
Ship being dismantled, and to-morrow will she go up to her middle in mud,
and here am I anchored to my old Desk for the Winter; and beginning, as
usual, by writing to my Friends, to tell them what little there is to
tell of myself, and asking them to tell what they can of themselves in
return.  I shall even fire a shot at old Spedding; who would not answer
my last Letters at all: innocent as they were, I am sure: and asking
definite Questions, which he once told me he required if I wanted any
Answer.  I suppose he is now in Cumberland.  What _is_ become of Bacon?
Are you one of the Converted, who go the whole Hog?

Thompson--no, I mean the Master of Trinity--has replied to my half-yearly
Enquiries in a very kind Letter.  He tells me that my friend Edward
Cowell has pleased all the Audience he had with an inaugural Lecture
about Sanskrit. {97a}  Also, that there is such an Article in the
Quarterly about the Talmud {97b} as has not been seen (so fine an
Article, I mean) for years.  I have had Don Quixote, Boccaccio, and my
dear Sophocles (once more) for company on board: the first of these so
delightful, that I got to love the very Dictionary in which I had to look
out the words: yes, and often the same words over and over again.  The
Book really seemed to me the most delightful of all Books: Boccaccio,
delightful too, but millions of miles behind; in fact, a whole Planet
away.

_To W. A. Wright_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Dec._ 11 [1867].

DEAR SIR,

When Robert Groome was with me a month ago, I was speaking to him of
having found some Bacon in Montaigne: and R. G. told me that you had
observed the same, and were indeed collecting some instances; I think,
quotations from Seneca, so employed as to prove that Bacon had them from
the Frenchman.  It has been the fashion of late to scoff at Seneca; whom
such men as Bacon and Montaigne quoted: perhaps not Seneca's own, but
cribbed from some Greek which would have been admired by those who scoff
at the Latin.

I had not noticed this Seneca coincidence: but I had observed a few
passages of Montaigne's own, which seemed to me to have got into Bacon's
Essays.  I dare say I couldn't light upon all these now; but, having been
turning over Essai 9, Lib. III. De la Vanite, I find one sentence which
comes to the point: 'Car parfois c'est bien choisir de ne choisir pas.'
In the same Essay is a piece of King Lear, perhaps; 'De ce mesme papier
ou il vient d'escrire l'arrest de condemnation contre un Adultere, le
Juge en desrobe un lopin pour en faire un poulet a la femme de son
compaignon.'  One doesn't talk of such things as of plagiarisms, of
course; as if Bacon and Shakespeare couldn't have said much better things
themselves; only for the pleasure of tracing where they read, and what
they were struck by.  I see that 'L'Appetit vient en mangeant' is in the
same Essay.

If I light some other day on the other passages, I will take the liberty
of telling you.  You see I have already taken the liberty of writing to a
man, not unknown to me in several ways, but with whom I have not the
pleasure of being acquainted personally.  Perhaps I may have that
pleasure one of these days; we are both connected with the same town of
Beccles, and may come together.  I hope so.

But I have also another reason for writing to you.  Your 'Master' wrote
me word the other day, among other things, that you as well as he wished
for my own noble works in your Library.  I quite understand that this is
on the ground of my being a Trinity man.  But then one should have done
something worthy of ever so little a niche in Trinity Library; and that I
do know is not my case.  I have several times told the Master what I
think, and know, of my small Escapades in print; nice little things, some
of them, which may interest a few people (mostly friends, or through
friends) for a few years.  But I am always a little ashamed of having
made my leisure and idleness the means of putting myself forward in
print, when really so many much better people keep silent, having other
work to do.  This is, I know, my sincere feeling on the subject.  However,
as I think some of the Translations I have done are all I can dare to
show, and as it would be making too much fuss to wait for any further
asking on the subject, I will send them if you think good one of these
days all done up together; the Spanish, at least, which are, I think, all
of a size.  Will you tell the Master so if you happen to see him and
mention the subject?  Allow me to end by writing myself yours sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Dec._ 28 [1867].

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I don't think I told you about Garcin de Tassy.  He sent me (as no
doubt he sent you) his annual Oration.  I wrote to thank him: and said I
had been lately busy with another countryman of his, Mons. Nicolas, with
his Omar Khayyam.  On which De Tassy writes back by return of post to ask
'Where I got my Copy of Nicolas?  He had not been able to get one in all
Paris!'  So I wrote to Quaritch: who told me the Book was to be had of
Maisonneuve, or any Oriental Bookseller in Paris; but that probably the
Shopman did not understand, when '_Les Rubaiyat d'Omar_, etc.,' were
asked for, that it meant '_Les Quatrains_, etc.'  This (which I doubt not
is the solution of the Mystery) I wrote to Garcin: at the same time
offering one of my two Copies.  By return of Post comes a frank
acceptance of one of the Copies; and his own Translation of Attar's Birds
by way of equivalent.  [Greek text].  Well, as I got these Birds just as
I was starting here, I brought them with me, and looked them over.  Here,
at Lowestoft, in this same row of houses, two doors off, I was writing
out the Translation I made in the Winter of 1859.  I have scarce looked
at Original or Translation since.  But I was struck by this; that eight
years had made little or no alteration in my idea of the matter: it
seemed to me that I really had brought in nearly all worth remembering,
and had really condensed the whole into a much compacter Image than the
original.  This is what I think I can do, with such discursive things:
such as all the Oriental things I have seen are.  I remember you thought
that I had lost the Apologues towards the close; but I believe I was
right in excluding them, as the narrative grew dramatic and neared the
Catastrophe.  Also, it is much better to glance at the dangers of the
Valley when the Birds are in it, than to let the Leader recount them
before: which is not good policy, morally or dramatically.  When I say
all this, you need not suppose that I am vindicating the Translation as a
Piece of Verse.  I remember thinking it from the first rather
disagreeable than not: though with some good parts.  Jam satis.

There is a pretty story, which seems as if it really happened (p. 201 of
De Tassy's Translation, referring to v. 3581 of the original), of the Boy
falling into a well, and on being taken out senseless, the Father asking
him to say but a word; and then, but one word more: which the Boy says
and dies.  And at p. 256, Translation (v. 4620), I read, 'Lorsque Nizam
ul-mulk fut a l'agonie, il dit: "O mon Dieu, je m'en vais entre les mains
du vent."'  Here is our Omar in his Friend's mouth, is it not?

I have come here to wind up accounts for our Herring-lugger: much against
us, as the season has been a bad one.  My dear Captain, who looks in his
Cottage like King Alfred in the Story, was rather saddened by all this,
as he had prophesied better things.  I tell him that if he is but what I
think him--and surely my sixty years of considering men will not so
deceive me at last!--I would rather lose money with him than gain it with
others.  Indeed I never proposed Gain, as you may imagine: but only to
have some Interest with this dear Fellow.  Happy New Year to you Both!

I wish you would have Semelet's Gulistan which I have.  You know I never
cared for Sadi.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan_: 9/68.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I saw advertised in my old Athenaeum a Review {102} of Richardson's
Novels in the January Cornhill.  So I bought it: and began to think you
might have written it: but was not so assured as I went on.  It is
however very good, in my opinion, whoever did it: though I don't think it
does all justice to the interminable Original.  When the Writer talks of
Grandison and Clarissa being the two Characters--oh, Lovelace himself
should have made the third: if unnatural (as the Reviewer says), yet not
the less wonderful: quite beyond and above anything in Fielding.  Whether
you wrote the article or not, I know you are one of the few who have read
the Book.  The Reviewer admits that it might be abridged; I am convinced
of that, and have done it for my own satisfaction: but you thought this
was not to be done.  So here is internal proof that you didn't write what
Thackeray used to call the '_Hurticle_,' or that you have changed your
mind on that score.  But you haven't.  But I know better, Lord bless you:
and am sure I could (with a pair of Scissors) launch old Richardson
again: we shouldn't go off the stocks easy (pardon nautical metaphors),
but stick by the way, amid the jeers of Reviewers who had never read the
original: but we should float at last.  Only I don't want to spend a lot
of money to be hooted at, without having time to wait for the floating.

I have spent lots of money on my Herring-lugger, which has made but a
poor Season.  So now we are going (like wise men) to lay out a lot more
for Mackerel; and my Captain (a dear Fellow) is got ill, which is much
worst of all: so hey for 1868!  Which is wishing you better luck next
time, Sir, etc.

Spedding at last found and sent me his delightful little Paper about
Twelfth Night.  I was glad to be set right about Viola: but I think he
makes too much of the whole play, 'finest of Comedies,' etc.  It seems to
me quite a light, slight, sketch--for Twelfth Night--What you will, etc.
What else does the Name mean?  Have I uttered these Impieties!  No more!
Nameless as shameless.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: _May_ 28/68.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I was just about to post you your own Calcutta Review when your Letter
came, asking about some Euphranors.  Oh yes!  I have a Lot of them:
returned from Parker's when they were going to dissolve their House; I
would not be at the Bother of any further negociation with any other
Bookseller, about half a dozen little Books which so few wanted: so had
them all sent here.  I will therefore send you six copies.  I had
supposed that you didn't like the second Edition so well as the first:
and had a suspicion myself that, though I improved it in some respects, I
had done more harm than good: and so I have never had courage to look
into it since I sent it to you at Oxford.  Perhaps Tennyson {104} only
praised the first Edition and I don't know where to lay my hands on that.
I wonder he should have thought twice about it.  Not but I think the
Truth is told: only, a Truth every one knows!  And told in a shape of
Dialogue really something Platonic: but I doubt rather affectedly too.
However, such as it is, I send it you.  I remember being anxious about it
twenty years ago, because I thought it was the Truth (as if my telling it
could mend the matter!): and I cannot but think that the Generation that
has grown up in these twenty years has not profited by the Fifty Thousand
Copies of this great work!

I am sorry to trouble you about Macmillan; I should not have done so had
I kept my Copy with your corrections as well as my own.  As Lamb said of
himself, so I say; that I never had any Luck with printing: I certainly
don't mean that I have had much cause to complain: but, for instance, I
know that Livy and Napier, put into good Verse, are just worth a corner
in one of the swarm of Shilling Monthlies. {105}

'Locksley Hall' is far more like Lucretius than the last Verses put into
his mouth by A. T.  But, once get a Name in England, and you may do
anything.  But I dare say that wise men too, like Spedding, will be of
the same mind with the Times Critic. (I have not seen him.) What does
Thompson say?  You, I, and John Allen, are among the few, I do say, who,
having a good natural Insight, maintain it undimmed by public, or
private, Regards.

P.S.  Having consulted my Landlord, I find that I can pay carriage all
through to Cambridge.  Therefore it is that I send you, not only your own
Book, and my own, but also one of the genteel copies of Boswell's
Johnson; and Wesley's Journal: both of which I gave you, only never sent!
Now they shall go.  Wesley, you will find pleasant to dip into, I think:
of course, there is much sameness; and I think you will allow some
absurdity among so much wise and good.  I am almost sorry that I have not
noted down on the fly-leaf some of the more remarkable Entries, as I have
in my own Copy.  If you have not read the little Autobiography of
Wesley's Disciple, John Nelson, give a shilling for it.  It seems to me
something wonderful to read these Books, written in a Style that cannot
alter, because natural; while the Model Writers, Addison, Johnson, etc.,
have had their Day.  Dryden holds, I think: he did not set up for a Model
Prose man.  Sir T. Browne's Style is natural to him, one feels.

FELIXTOW FERRY: _July_ 25 [1868.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

I found your Letter on reaching Woodbridge yesterday; where you see I did
not stay long.  In fact I only left Lowestoft partly to avoid a Volunteer
Camp there which filled the Town with People and Bustle: and partly that
my Captain might see his Wife: who cannot last _very_ much longer I
think: scarcely through Autumn, surely.  She goes about, nurses her
children, etc., but grows visibly thinner, weaker, and more ailing.

If the Wind changes (now directly in our Teeth) I shall sail back to
Lowestoft to-morrow.  Thompson and Mrs. T. propose to be at the Royal
Hotel there till Wednesday, and we wish, I believe, to see each other
again.  Sailing did not agree with his bilious temperament: and he seemed
to me injudicious in his hours of Exercise, Dinner, etc.  But he, and
she, should know best.  I like her very much: head and heart right
feminine of the best, it seemed to me: and her experience of the World,
and the Wits, not having injured either.

I only wanted Macmillan to return the Verses {107} if he wouldn't use
them, because of my having no corrected Copy of them.

I see in the last Athenaeum a new '_and revised_' Edition of Clarissa
advertised.  I suppose this 'revised' does not mean 'abridged,' without
which the Book will _not_ permanently make way, as I believe.  That, you
know, I wanted to do: could do: and nearly have done;--But that, and my
Crabbe, I must leave for my Executors and Heirs to consign to
Lumber-room, or fire.

Pray let me hear of your movements, especially such as tend hitherward.
About September--Alas!--I think we shall be a good Deal here, or at
Woodbridge; probably not so much before that time.

Ever yours and Lady's, E. F. G.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 1/69.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . My Lugger Captain has just left me to go on his Mackerel Voyage to
the Western Coast; and I don't know when I shall see him again.  Just
after he went, a muffled bell from the Church here began to toll for
somebody's death: it sounded like a Bell under the sea.  He sat listening
to the Hymn played by the Church chimes last evening, and said he could
hear it all as if in Lowestoft Church when he was a Boy, 'Jesus our
Deliverer!'  You can't think what a grand, tender, Soul this is, lodged
in a suitable carcase.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

[1869.]

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

(I must get a new Pen for you--which doesn't promise to act as well as
the old one--Try another.)

Dear Mrs. Thompson--Mistress of Trinity--(this does better)--

I am both sorry, and glad, that you wrote me the Letter you have written
to me: sorry, because I think it was an effort to you, disabled as you
are; and glad, I need not say why.

I despatched Spedding's letter to your Master yesterday; I daresay you
have read it: for there was nothing extraordinary wicked in it.  But, he
to talk of _my_ perversity! . . .

My Sir Joshua is a darling.  A pretty young Woman ('Girl' I won't call
her) sitting with a turtle-dove in her lap, while its mate is supposed to
be flying down to it from the window.  I say 'supposed,' for Sir J. who
didn't know much of the drawing of Birds, any more than of Men and Women,
has made a thing like a stuffed Bird clawing down like a Parrot.  But
then, the Colour, the Dove-colour, subdued so as to carry off the richer
tints of the dear Girl's dress; and she, too, pensive, not sentimental: a
Lady, as her Painter was a Gentleman.  Faded as it is in the face (the
Lake, which he would use, having partially flown), it is one of the most
beautiful things of his I have seen: more varied in colour; not the
simple cream-white dress he was fond of, but with a light gold-threaded
Scarf, a blue sash, a green chair, etc. . . .

I was rather taken aback by the Master's having discovered my last--yes,
and bona-fide my last--translation in the volume I sent to your Library.
I thought it would slip in unobserved, and I should have given all my
little contributions to my old College, without after-reckoning.  Had I
known you as the Wife of any but the 'quondam' Greek Professor, I should
very likely have sent it to you: since it was meant for those who might
wish for some insight into a Play {109} which I must think they can
scarcely have been tempted into before by any previous Translation.  It
remains to be much better done; but if Women of Sense and Taste, and Men
of Sense and Taste (who don't know Greek) can read, and be interested in
such a glimpse as I give them of the Original, they must be content, and
not look the Horse too close in the mouth, till a better comes to hand.

My Lugger has had (along with her neighbours) such a Season hitherto of
Winds as no one remembers.  We made 450 pounds in the North Sea; and
(just for fun) I did wish to realize 5 pounds in my Pocket.  But my
Captain would take it all to pay Bills.  But if he makes another 400
pounds this Home Voyage!  Oh, then we shall have money in our Pockets.  I
do wish this.  For the anxiety about all these People's lives has been so
much more to me than all the amusement I have got from the Business, that
I think I will draw out of it if I can see my Captain sufficiently firm
on his legs to carry it on alone.  True, there will then be the same risk
to him and his ten men, but they don't care; only I sit here listening to
the Winds in the Chimney, and always thinking of the Eleven hanging at my
own fingers' ends.

This Letter is all desperately about me and mine, Translations and Ships.
And now I am going to walk in _my_ Garden: and feed _my_ Captain's Pony
with white Carrots; and in the Evening have _my_ Lad come and read for an
hour and a half (he stumbles at every third word, and gets dreadfully
tired, and so do I; but I renovate him with Cake and Sweet Wine), and I
can't just now smoke the Pipe nor drink the Grog.  'These are my
Troubles, Mr. Wesley;' {110} but I am still the Master's and Mistress'
loyal Servant,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE: Tuesday,
[28 _Dec._ 1869.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Your Letter to day was a real pleasure--nay, a comfort--to me.  For I had
begun to think that, for whatever reason, you had dropt me; and I know
not one of all my friends whom I could less afford to lose.

You anticipate rightly all I think of the new Idylls. {111}  I had bought
the Book at Lowestoft: and when I returned here for Christmas found that
A. T.'s Publisher had sent me a Copy.  As I suppose this was done by A.
T.'s order, I have written to acknowledge the Gift, and to tell him
something, if not all, of what I think of them.  I do not tell him that I
think his hand weakened; but I tell him (what is very true) that, though
the main Myth of King Arthur's Dynasty in Britain has a certain Grandeur
in my Eyes, the several legendary fragments of it never did much interest
me; excepting the _Morte_, which I suppose most interested him also, as
he took it up first of all.  I am not sure if such a Romance as Arthur's
is not best told in the artless old English in which it was told to
Arthur's artless successors four hundred years ago; or dished up anew in
something of a Ballad Style like his own Lady of Shalott, rather than
elaborated into a modern Epic form.  I never cared, however, for _any_
chivalric Epic; neither Tasso, nor Spenser, nor even Ariosto, whose Epic
has a sort of Ballad-humour in it; Don Quixote is the only one of all
this sort I have ever cared for.

I certainly wish that Alfred had devoted his diminished powers to
translating Sophocles, or AEschylus, as I fancy a Poet should do--_one_
work, at any rate--of his great Predecessors.  But Pegasus won't be
harnessed.

From which I descend to my own humble feet.  I will send you some copies
of Calderon when I have uncloseted and corrected them.  As to Agamemnon,
I bound up a Copy of him in the other Translations I sent to Trinity
Library--not very wisely, I doubt; but I thought the Book would just be
put up on its shelf, and I had given all I was asked for, or ever could
be asked for.  The Master, however, wrote me that it came to his Eyes,
and I dare say he thought I had best have let AEschylus alone.  My
Version was not intended for those who know the Original; but, by hook or
by crook, to interest some who do not.  The _Shape_ I have wrought the
Play into is good, I think: the Dialogue good also: but the Choruses
(though well contrived for the progress of the Story) are very false to
AEschylus; and anyhow want the hand of a Poet.  Mine, as I said, are only
a sort of 'Entr' acte' Music, which would be better supplied by Music
itself.

I will send you in a day or two my Christmas Gossip for the East Anglian,
where I am more at home.  But you have heard me tell it all before.

It is too late to wish you a good Christmas--(I wonder how you passed it,
mine was solitary and dull enough) but you know I wish you all the Good
the New Year can bring.  Love to Elizabeth; do not be so long without
writing again, if only half a dozen lines, to yours and hers sincerely,

E. F. G.

_To S. Laurence_.

MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE.
_Jan._ 13/70.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Can you tell me (in a line) how I should treat some old Pictures of mine
which have somehow got rusty with the mixt damp and then fires (I
suppose) of my new house, which, after being built at near double its
proper cost, is just what I do not want, according to the usage of the
Ballyblunder Family, of which I am a very legitimate offshoot?

If you were down here, I think I should make you take a life-size Oil
Sketch of the Head and Shoulders of my Captain of the Lugger.  You see by
the enclosed that these are neither of them of a bad sort: and the Man's
Soul is every way as well proportioned, missing in nothing that may
become A Man, as I believe.  He and I will, I doubt, part Company; well
as he likes me, which is perhaps as well as a sailor cares for any one
but Wife and Children: he likes to be, what he is born to be, his own
sole Master, of himself, and of other men.  So now I have got him a fair
start, I think he will carry on the Lugger alone: I shall miss my Hobby,
which is no doubt the last I shall ride in this world: but I shall also
get eased of some Anxiety about the lives of a Crew for which I now feel
responsible.  And this last has been a Year of great Anxiety in this
respect.

I had to run to London for one day about my Eyes (which, you see by my
MS., are not in prime order at all) and saw a Sir Joshua at a Framer's
window, and brought it down.  The face faded, but elegant and lady-like
always; the dress in colour quite Venetian.  It was in Leicester Square;
I can't think how all the world of Virtuosos kept passing and would not
give twenty pounds for it.  But you don't rate Sir Joshua in comparison
with Gainsboro'.

WOODBRIDGE: _Jan._ 20/70.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . My Captain lives at Lowestoft, and is there at present: he also in
anxiety about his Wife who was brought to bed the very same day my
Landlady died, and (as a letter from him this morning tells me) has a
hard time of it.  I should certainly like a large Oil-sketch, like
Thackeray's, done in your most hasty, and worst, style, to hang up with
Thackeray and Tennyson, with whom he shares a certain Grandeur of Soul
and Body.  As you guess, the colouring is (when the Man is all well) as
fine as his form: the finest Saxon type: with that complexion which
Montaigne calls 'vif, male, et flamboyant'; blue eyes; and strictly
auburn hair, that any woman might sigh to possess.  He says it is coming
off, as it sometimes does from those who are constantly wearing the close
hot Sou'westers.  We must see what can be done about a Sketch.

LOWESTOFT, _February_ 27 [1870].

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I came here a few days ago, for the benefit of my old Doctor, The
Sea, and my Captain's Company, which is as good.  He has not yet got his
new Lugger home; but will do so this week, I hope; and then the way for
us will be somewhat clearer.

If you sketch in a head, you might send it down to me to look at, so as I
might be able to guess if there were any likelihood in that way of
proceeding.  Merely the Lines of Feature indicated, even by Chalk, might
do.  As I told you, the Head is of the large type, or size, the proper
Capital of a six foot Body, of the broad dimensions you see in the
Photograph.  The fine shape of the Nose, less than Roman, and more than
Greek, scarce appears in the Photograph; the Eye, and its delicate
Eyelash, of course will remain to be made out; and I think you excel in
the Eye.

When I get home (which I shall do this week) I will send you two little
Papers about the Sea words and Phrases used hereabout, {116a} for which
this Man (quite unconsciously) is my main Authority.  You will see in
them a little of his simplicity of Soul; but not the Justice of Thought,
Tenderness of Nature, and all the other good Gifts which make him a
Gentleman of Nature's grandest Type.

SUFFOLK HOTEL, LOWESTOFT, _August_ 2/70.

DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . The Lugger is now preparing in the Harbour beside me; the Captain
here, there, and everywhere; with a word for no one but on business; the
other side of the Man you saw looking for Birds' Nests; all things in
their season.  I am sure the Man is fit to be King of a Kingdom as well
as of a Lugger.  To-day he gives the customary Dinner to his Crew before
starting, and my own two men go to it; and I am asked too: but will not
spoil the Fun.

I declare, you and I have seen A Man!  Have we not?  Made in the mould of
what Humanity should be, Body and Soul, a poor Fisherman.  The proud
Fellow had better have kept me for a Partner in some of his
responsibilities. {116b}  But no; he must rule alone, as is right he
should too.

I date from the Inn where my Letters are addressed; but I write in the
little Ship which I live in.  My Nieces are now here; in the town, I
mean; and my friend Cowell and his Wife; so I have more company than all
the rest of the year.  I try to shut my Eyes and Ears against all tidings
of this damnable War, seeing that I can do no good to others by
distressing myself.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

BRIDGEWOOD, _Nov._ 1, [1870].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I must say that my savageness against France goes no further than wishing
that the new and gay part of Paris were battered down; not the poor
working part, no, nor any of the People destroyed.  But I wish ornamental
Paris down, because then I think the French would be kept quiet till they
had rebuilt it.  For what would France be without a splendid Palace?  I
should not wish any such Catastrophe, however, if Paris were now as I
remember it: with a lot of old historic houses in it, old Gardens, etc.,
which I am told are now made away with.  Only Notre Dame, the Tuileries,
and perhaps the beautiful gilt Dome of the Invalides do I care for.  They
are historical and beautiful too.

But I believe it would be a good thing if the rest of Europe would take
possession of France itself, and rule it for better or worse, leaving the
French themselves to amuse and enlighten the world by their Books, Plays,
Songs, Bon Mots, and all the Arts and Sciences which they are so
ingenious in.  They can do all things but manage themselves and live at
peace with others: and they should themselves be glad to have their
volatile Spirits kept in order by the Good Sense and Honesty which other
Nations certainly abound in more than themselves. {118a}

I see what I think very good remarks about them in old Palmerston's
Papers quoted in my Athenaeum. {118b}  He was just the Man they wanted, I
think.

WOODBRIDGE, _Nov._ 15, [1870].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . Ah, I should like to hear Fidelio again, often as I have heard it.
I do not find so much 'Melody' in it as you do: understanding by Melody
that which asserts itself independently of Harmony, as Mozart's Airs do.
I miss it especially in Leonora's Hope song.  But, what with the story
itself, and the Passion and Power of the Music it is set to, the Opera is
one of those that one can hear repeated as often as any.

If any one ever would take a good suggestion from me, you might suggest
to Mr. Sullivan, or some competent Musician, to adapt that Epilogue part
of Tennyson's King Arthur, beginning--

   And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem'd
   To sail with Arthur, etc.

down to

   And War shall be no more--

to adapt this, I say, to the Music of that grand last Scene in Fidelio:
Sullivan & Co. supplying the introductory Recitative; beginning dreamily,
and increasing, crescendo, up to where the Poet begins to 'feel the truth
and Stir of Day'; till Beethoven's pompous March should begin, and the
Chorus, with 'Arthur is come, etc.'; the chief Voices raising the words
aloft (as they do in Fidelio), and the Chorus thundering in upon them.  It
is very grand in Fidelio: and I am persuaded might have a grand effect in
this Poem.  But no one will do it, of course; especially in these Days
when War is so far from being no more!

I want to hear Cherubini's Medea, which I dare say I should find masterly
and dull.  I quite agree with you about the Italians: Mozart the only
exception; who is all in all.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 5/70.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . Had not Sunday followed Saturday I was a little tempted to run up
to hear Cherubini's Medea, which I saw advertised for the Night.  But I
believe I should feel strange at a Play now: and probably should not have
sat the Opera half out.  So you have a good Play, {120} and that well
acted, at last, on English Boards!  At the old Haymarket, I think: the
pleasantest of all the Theatres (for size and Decoration) that I
remember; yes, and for the Listons and Vestrises that I remember there in
the days of their Glory.  Vestris, in what was called a 'Pamela Hat' with
a red feather; and, again, singing 'Cherry Ripe,' one of the Dozen
immortal English Tunes.  That was in 'Paul Pry.'  Poor Plays they were,
to be sure: but the Players were good and handsome, and--oneself was
young--1822-3!  There was Macready's Virginius at old Covent Garden, an
event never to be forgotten.

One Date leads to another.  In talking one day about different Quotations
which get abroad without people always knowing whence they are derived, I
could have sworn that I remember Spring Rice mentioning one that he
himself had invented, and had been amused at seeing quoted here and
there--

   Coldly correct and critically dull.

Now only last night I happened to see the Line quoted in the Preface to
Frederick Reynolds' (the Playwright's) stupid Memoirs, published in 1827;
some time before Spring Rice would have thought of such things, I
suppose. . . .

What Plays Reynolds' were, which made George III. laugh so, and put 500
pounds apiece into the writer's Pocket!  But then there were Lewis,
Quick, Kemble, Edwin, Parsons, Palmer, Mrs. Jordan, etc. to act them.

WOODBRIDGE, _Jan._ 22, [1871].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

My acquaintance with Spanish, as with other Literature, is almost
confined to its Fiction; and of that I have read nothing to care about
except Don Quixote and Calderon.  The first is well worth learning
Spanish for.  When I began reading the Language more than twenty years
ago, with Cowell who taught me nearly all I know, I tried some of the
other Dramatists, Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, Moratin, etc., but could
take but little interest in them.  All Calderon's, I think, have
something beautiful in them: and about a score of them altogether bear
reading again, and will be remembered if read but once.  But Don Quixote
is _the_ Book, as you know; to be fully read, I believe, in no language
but its own, though delightful in any.  You know as well as I that
Spanish History has a good name; Mariana's for one: and one makes sure
that the Language, at any rate, must be suitable to relate great Things
with.  But I do not meddle with History.

There are very good Selections from the Spanish Dramas published in good
large-type Octavo by Don Ochoa, printed (I think) by Baudry, in Paris.
There is one volume of Calderon; one of Lope, I believe: and one or two
made up of other Playwrights.  These Books are very easily got at any
foreign Bookseller's.

An Artist {122a} to whom I have lent my house for a while has been
teaching me 'Spanish Dominoes,' a very good Game.  He, and I, and the
Captain whose Photo I sent you (did I not?) had a grand bout with it the
other day.  If I went about in Company again I think I should do as old
Rossini did, carry a Box of Dominoes, or pack of Cards, which I think
would set Conversation at ease by giving people something easy to do
beside conversing.  I say Rossini did this; but I only know of his doing
it once, at Trouville, where F. Hiller met him, who has published the
Conversations they had together.

Did you lead the very curious Paper in the Cornhill, {122b} a year back,
I think, concerning the vext question of Mozart's Requiem?  It is curious
as a piece of Evidence, irrespective of any musical Interest.  Evidence,
I believe, would compel a Law Court to decide that the Requiem was
mainly, not Mozart's, but his pupil Sussmayer's.  And perhaps the Law
Court might justly so decide, if by 'mainly' one understood the more
technical business of filling up the ideas suggested by the Master.  But
then those ideas are just everything; and no Court of Musical Equity but
would decide, against all other Evidence, that those ideas were Mozart's.
It is known that he was instructing Sussmayer, almost with his last
breath, about some drum accompaniments to the Requiem; and I have no
doubt, hummed over the subjects, or melodies, of all.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Feb._ 1, [1871],

MY DEAR MASTER,

The Gorgias duly came last week, thank you: and I write rather earlier
than I should otherwise have done to satisfy you on that point.
Otherwise, I say, I should have waited awhile till I had gone over all
the Notes more carefully, with some of the sweet-looking Text belonging
to them; which would have taken some time, as my Eyes have not been in
good trim of late, whether from the Snow on the Ground, and the murky Air
all about one, or because of the Eyes themselves being two years older
than when they got hurt by Paraffin.

The Introduction I have read twice, and find it quite excellently
written.  Surely I miss some--ay, more than some--of the Proof you sent
me two years ago; some of the Argument to prove the relation between this
Dialogue and the Republic, and consequently of the Date that must be
assigned to it.  All that interested me then as it does now, and I would
rather have seen the Introduction all the longer by it.  Perhaps,
however, I am confounding my remembrances of the Date question (which of
course follows from the matter) with the Phaedrus Introduction.

Then as to what I have seen of the Notes: they seem to me as good as can
be.  I do not read modern Scholars, and therefore do not know how
generally the Style of English Note-writing may be [different] from that
of the Latin one was used to.  But your Notes, I know, seem excellent to
me; I mean, in the Style of them (for of the Scholarship I am not a
proper Judge); totally without pedantry of any sort, whether of solving
unnecessary difficulties, carping at other Critics, etc., but plainly
determined to explain what needs explanation in the shortest, clearest,
way, and in a Style which is most of all suited to the purpose, 'familiar
but by no means vulgar,' such as we have known in such cases, whether in
Latin or English.  My Quotation reminds me of yours: how sparingly, and
always just to the point, introduced; Polus 'gambolling' from the Theme:
old Wordsworth's Robin Hood, etc.  And the paraphrases you give of the
Greek are so just the thing.  I have not read Vaughan's (?) Translation
of the Republic; which I am told is good.  But this I know that I never
met with any readable Translation of Plato.  Whewell's was intolerable.
You should have translated--(that is, paraphrased, for however far some
People may err on this score, rushing in where Scholars fear to tread) a
Translation must be Paraphrase to be readable; and especially in these
Dialogues where the familiar Grace of the Narrative and Conversation is
so charming a vehicle of the Philosophy.  If people will conscientiously
translate [Greek text] 'Oh most excellent man,' when perhaps 'My good
Fellow' was the thing meant, and 'By the Dog!' and so on, why, it is not
English talk, and probably not Greek either.  I say you should have, or
should translate one or two Dialogues to show how they should be done; if
no longer than the Lysis, or one of those small and sweet ones which I
believe the Germans disclaim for Plato's.

'The Dog' however does need a Note, as I suppose that, however
far-fetched Olympiodorus' suggestion, this was an Oath familiar to
Socrates alone, and which he took up for some, perhaps whimsical, reason.
It is not to be found (is it?) in Aristophanes, where I suppose all the
common Oaths come in; but then again I wonder that, if it were Socrates'
Oath, it did not find its way into the Clouds, or perhaps into the
criminal Charge against Socrates, as being a sort of mystical or scoffing
Blasphemy.

I am afraid I tire you more with my Letter than you tired me with your
Introduction, a good deal.  And you see, to your cost, that my MS. does
not argue much pleasure in the act of writing.  But I would say my little
say; which perhaps is all wrong. . . .

One of your Phrases I think truly delightful, about the Treasure to be
sometimes found in a weak Vessel like Proclus.  That I think is very
Platonic; all the more for such things coming only now and then, which
makes them tell.  Modern Books lose by being over-crowded with good
things.

* * * * *

In the course of this year 1871, FitzGerald parted with his little yacht
the Scandal, so called, he said, because it was the staple product of
Woodbridge, and on September 4 he wrote to me:--

WOODBRIDGE: _Septr._ 4/71.

'I run over to Lowestoft occasionally for a few days, but do not abide
there long: no longer having my dear little Ship for company.  I saw her
there looking very smart under her new owner ten days ago, and I felt so
at home when I was once more on her Deck that--Well: I content myself
with sailing on the river Deben, looking at the Crops as they grow green,
yellow, russet, and are finally carried away in the red and blue Waggons
with the sorrel horse.'

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[1871].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . A night or two ago I was reading old Thackeray's Roundabouts; and
(sign of a good book) heard him talking to me.  I wonder at his being so
fretted by what was said of him as some of these Papers show that he was:
very unlike his old self, surely.  Perhaps Ill Health (which Johnson said
made every one a Scoundrel) had something to do with this.  I don't mean
that W. M. T. went this length: but in this one respect he was not so
good as he used to be.

Annie Thackeray in her yearly letter wrote that she had heard from Mrs.
A. T. that the Laureate was still suffering.  I judge from your Letter
that he is better. . . .  I never heard any of his coadjutor Sullivan's
Music.  Is there a Tune, or originally melodious phrase, in any of it?
That is what I always missed in Mendelssohn, except in two or three of
his youthful Pieces; Fingal and Midsummer Night's Dream overtures, and
Meeresstille.  Chorley {127} mentions as a great instance of M.'s
candour, that when some of his Worshippers were sneering at Donizetti's
'Figlia,' M. silenced them by saying 'Do you [know] I should like to have
written it myself.'  If he meant that he ever could have written it if he
had pleased, he ought to have had his nose tweaked.

I have been reading Sir Walter's Pirate again, and am very glad to find
how much I like it--that is speaking far below the mark--I may say how I
wonder and delight in it.  I am rejoiced to find that this is so; and I
am quite sure that it is not owing to my old prejudice, but to the
intrinsic merit and beauty of the Book itself.  With all its faults of
detail, often mere carelessness, what a broad Shakespearian Daylight over
it all, and all with no Effort, and--a lot else that one may be contented
to feel without having to write an Essay about.  They won't beat Sir
Walter in a hurry (I mean of course his earlier, Northern, Novels), and
he was such a fine Fellow that I really don't believe any one would wish
to cast him in the Shade. {128}

_To T. Carlyle_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 20, [1871].

DEAR CARLYLE,

Do not be alarmed at another Letter from me this year.  It will need no
answer: and is only written to tell you that I have not wholly neglected
the wish you expressed in your last about the Naseby stone.  I was
reading, some months ago, your letters about our Naseby exploits in 1842:
as also one which you wrote in 1855 (I think) about that Stone, giving me
an Inscription for it.  And it was not wholly my fault that your wishes
were not then fulfilled, though perhaps I was wanting in due energy about
the matter.  Thus, however, it was; that when you wrote in 1855, we had
just sold Naseby to the Trustees of Lord Clifden: and, as there was some
hitch in the Business (Lord Carlisle being one of the Trustees), I was
told I had better not put in my oar.  So the matter dropt.  Since then
Lord Clifden is dead: and I do not know if the Estate belongs to his
Family.  But, on receiving your last Letter, I wrote to the Lawyers who
had managed for Lord Clifden to know about it: but up to this hour I have
had no answer.  Thus much I have done.  If I get the Lawyer's and Agent's
consent, I should be very glad indeed to have the stone cut, and
lettered, as you wished.  But whether I should pluck up spirit to go
myself and set it up on the proper spot, I am not so sure; and I cannot
be sure that any one else could do it for me.  Those who were with me
when I dug up the bones are dead, or gone; and I suppose the Plough has
long ago obliterated the traces of sepulture, in these days of improved
Agriculture; and perhaps even the Tradition is lost from the Memory of
the Generation that has sprung up since I, and the old Parson, and the
Scotch Tenant, turned up the ground.  You will think me very base to
hesitate about such a little feat as a Journey into Northamptonshire for
this purpose.  But you know that one does not generally grow more active
in Travel as one gets older: and I have been a bad Traveller all my life.
So I will promise nothing that I am not sure of doing.  Only, if you
continue to desire this strongly, when next Summer comes, I will resolve
upon it if I can.

These Naseby Letters of yours--they are all yours I have preserved,
because (as in the case of Tennyson and Thackeray) I would not leave
anything of private personal history behind me, lest it should fall into
some unscrupulous hand.  Even these Naseby letters--would you wish them
returned to you?  Only in case you should desire this, trouble yourself
to answer me now.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 24, [1871]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . The Pirate is, I know, not one of Scott's best: the Women, Minna,
Brenda, Norna, are poor theatrical figures.  But Magnus and Jack Bunce
and Claud Halcro (though the latter rather wearisome) are substantial
enough: how wholesomely they swear! and no one ever thinks of blaming
Scott for it.  There is a passage where the Company at Burgh Westra are
summoned by Magnus to go down to the Shore to see the Boats go off to the
Deep Sea fishing, and 'they followed his stately step to the Shore as the
Herd of Deer follows the leading Stag, with all manner of respectful
Observance.'  This, coming in at the close of the preceding unaffected
Narrative is to me like Homer, whom Scott really resembles in the
simplicity and ease of his Story.  This is far more poetical in my Eyes
than all the Effort of ---, ---, etc.  And which of them has written such
a Lyric as 'Farewell to Northmaven'?  I finished the Book with Sadness;
thinking I might never read it again. . . .

P.S.  Can't you send me your Paper about the Novelists?  As to which is
the best of all I can't say: that Richardson (with all his twaddle) is
better than Fielding, I am quite certain.  There is nothing at all
comparable to Lovelace in all Fielding, whose Characters are common and
vulgar types; of Squires, Ostlers, Lady's maids, etc., very easily drawn.
I am equally sure that Miss Austen cannot be third, any more than first
or second: I think you were rather drawn away by a fashion when you put
her there: and really old Spedding seems to me to have been the Stag whom
so many followed in that fashion.  She is capital as far as she goes: but
she never goes out of the Parlour; if but Magnus Troil, or Jack Bunce, or
even one of Fielding's Brutes, would but dash in upon the Gentility and
swear a round Oath or two!  I must think the 'Woman in White,' with her
Count Fosco, far beyond all that.  Cowell constantly reads Miss Austen at
night after his Sanskrit Philology is done: it composes him, like Gruel:
or like Paisiello's Music, which Napoleon liked above all other, because
he said it didn't interrupt his Thoughts.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 29 [1871].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

If you come here, come some very fine weather, when we look at our best
inland, and you may take charge of my Boat on the River.  I doubt I did
my Eyes damage this Summer by steering in the Sun, and peering out for
the Beacons that mark the Channel; but your Eyes are proof against this,
and I shall resign the command to you, as you wrote that you liked it at
Clovelly. . . .

I had thought Beauty was the main object of the Arts: but these people,
not having Genius, I suppose, to create any new forms of that, have
recourse to the Ugly, and find their Worshippers in plenty.  In Poetry,
Music, and Painting, it seems to me the same.  And people think all this
finer than Mozart, Raffaelle, and Tennyson--as he _was_--but he never
ceases to be noble and pure.  There was a fine passage quoted from his
Last Idyll: about a Wave spending itself away on a long sandy Shore: that
was Lincolnshire, I know.

Carlyle has written to remind me of putting up a Stone on the spot in
Naseby field where I dug up the Dead for him thirty years ago.  I will
gladly have the Stone cut, and the Inscription he made for it engraved:
but will I go again to Northamptonshire to see it set up?  And perhaps
the people there have forgotten all about the place, now that a whole
Generation has passed away, and improved Farming has passed the Plough
over the Ground.  But we shall see.

_To W. A. Wright_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Jan._ 20/72.

By way of flourishing my Eyes, I have been looking into Andrew Marvell,
an old favourite of mine, who led the way for Dryden in Verse, and Swift
in Prose, and was a much better fellow than the last, at any rate.

Two of his lines in the Poem on 'Appleton House,' with its Gardens,
Grounds, etc., run:

   But most the _Hewel's_ wonders are,
   Who here has the Holtseltster's care.

The '_Hewel_' being evidently the Woodpecker, who, by tapping the Trees,
etc., does the work of one who measures and gauges Timber; here, rightly
or wrongly, called '_Holtseltster_.'   'Holt' one knows: but what is
'seltster'?  I do not find either this word or 'Hewel' in Bailey or
Halliwell.  But 'Hewel' may be a form of 'Yaffil,' which I read in some
Paper that Tennyson had used for the Woodpecker in his Last Tournament.
{133}

This reminded me that Tennyson once said to me, some thirty years ago, or
more, in talking of Marvell's 'Coy Mistress,' where it breaks in--

   But at my back I always hear
   Time's winged chariot hurrying near, etc.

'_That_ strikes me as Sublime, I can hardly tell why.  Of course, this
partly depends on its place in the Poem.

Apropos of the Woodpecker, a Clergyman near here was telling our
Bookseller Loder, that, in one of his Parishioners' Cottages, he observed
a dried Woodpecker hung up to the Ceiling indoors; and was told that it
always pointed with its Bill to the Quarter whence the Wind blew.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Feb._ 22, [1872].

. . . I have lost the Boy who read to me so long and so profitably: and
now have another; a much better Scholar, but not half so agreeable or
amusing a Reader as his Predecessor.  We go through Tichborne without
missing a Syllable, and, when Tichborne is not long enough, we take to
Lothair! which has entertained me well.  So far as I know of the matter,
his pictures of the manners of English High Life are good: Lothair
himself I do not care for, nor for the more romantic parts, Theodora,
etc.  Altogether the Book is like a pleasant Magic Lantern: when it is
over, I shall forget it: and shall want to return to what I do not
forget, some of Thackeray's monumental Figures of 'pauvre et triste
Humanite,' as old Napoleon called it: Humanity in its Depths, not in its
superficial Appearances.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

THE OLD PLACE, _Feb._ 25/72.

. . . Aldis Wright must be right about 'sear' {135a}--French _serre_ he
says.  What a pity that Spedding has not employed some of the forty years
he has lost in washing his Blackamoor in helping an Edition of
Shakespeare, though not in the way of these minute archaeologic
Questions!  I never heard him read a page but he threw some new Light
upon it.  When you see him pray tell him I do not write to him, because I
judge from experience that it is a labour to him to answer, unless it
were to do me any service I asked of him except to tell me of himself.

My heart leaped when the Boy read me the Attorney General's Quotation
from A. T. {135b}

_From T. Carlyle_.

CHELSEA, 15, _June_, 1872.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

I am glad that you are astir on the Naseby-Monument question; and that
the auspices are so favourable.  This welcome 'Agent,' so willing and
beneficent, will contrive, I hope, to spare you a good deal of the
trouble,--except indeed that of seeing with your own eyes that the Stone
is put in its right place, and the number of 'yards rearward' is exactly
given.

I think the Inscription will do; and as to the shape, etc., of the
monument, I have nothing to advise,--except that I think it ought to be
of the most perfect _simplicity_, and should {136} go direct to its
object and punctually stop there.  A small block of Portland
stone--(Portland excels all stones in the world for durability and
capacity for taking an exact inscription)--block of Portland stone of
size to contain the words and allow itself to be sunk firmly in the
ground; to me it could have no other good quality whatever; and I should
not care if the stone on three sides of it were squared with the hammer
merely, and only _polished_ on its front or fourth side where the letters
are to be.

In short I wish _you_ my dear friend to take charge of this pious act in
all its details; considering me to be loyally passive to whatever you
decide on respecting it.  If on those terms you will let me bear half the
expense and flatter myself that in this easy way I have gone halves with
you in this small altogether genuine piece of patriotism, I shall be
extremely obliged to you.

Pollock has told you an altogether flattering tale about my strength, as
it is nearly impossible for any person still on his feet to be more
completely useless.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

J. A. Froude (just come to walk with me) _scripsit_.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

WOODBRIDGE, _June_ 16, [1872].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Some forty years ago there was a set of Lithograph Outlines from Hayter's
Sketches of Pasta in Medea: caricature things, though done in earnest by
a Man who had none of the Genius of the Model he admired.  Looking at
them now people who never saw the Original will wonder perhaps that Talma
and Mrs. Siddons should have said that they might go to learn of Her: and
indeed it was only the Living Genius and Passion of the Woman herself
that could have inspired and exalted, and enlarged her very incomplete
Person (as it did her Voice) into the Grandeur, as well as the _Niobe_
Pathos, of her Action and Utterance.  All the nobler features of Humanity
she had indeed: finely shaped Head, Neck, Bust, and Arms: all finely
related to one another: the superior Features too of the Face fine: Eyes,
Eyebrows--I remember Trelawny saying they reminded him of those in the
East--the Nose not so fine: but the whole Face 'homogeneous' as Lavater
calls it, and capable of all expression, from Tragedy to Farce.  For I
have seen her in the 'Prova d' un' Opera Seria,' where no one, I believe,
admired her but myself, except Thomas Moore, whose Journal long after
published revealed to me one who thought,--yes, and _knew_--as I did.
Well, these Lithographs are as mere Skeleton Outlines of the living
Woman, but I suppose the only things now to give an Idea of her, I have
been a dozen years looking out for a Copy.

I think I love the Haymarket as much as any part of London because of the
Little Theatre where Vestris used to sing 'Cherry Ripe' in her prime: and
(soon after) because of the old Bills on the opposite Colonnade: 'MEDEA
IN CORINTO.  Medea, _Signora Pasta_.'  You know what she said, to the
Confusion of all aesthetic People, one of whom said to her, 'sans doute
vous avez beaucoup etudie l'Antique?'  'Peut-etre je l'ai beaucoup
senti.'

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I have remembered, since last writing to you, that the Hayter Sketches
were published by Dickenson of Bond Street, about 1825-6, I fancy.  I
have tried to get them, and all but succeeded two years ago.  I am afraid
they would give you and Miss Bateman the impression that Pasta played the
Virago: which was not so at all.  Her scene with her Children was among
the finest of all: and it was well known at the time how deeply she felt
it.  But I suppose the stronger Situations offered better opportunities
for the pencil, such a pencil as Hayter's.  I used to admire as much as
anything her Attitude and Air as she stood at the side of the Stage when
Jason's Bridal Procession came on: motionless, with one finger in her
golden girdle: a habit which (I heard) she inherited from Grassini.  The
finest thing to me in Pasta's Semiramide was her simple Action of
touching Arsace's Shoulder when she chose him for husband.  She was
always dignified in the midst of her Passion: never scolded as her
Caricature Grisi did.  And I remember her curbing her Arsace's redundant
Action by taking hold of her (Arsace's) hands, Arsace being played by
Brambilla, who was (I think) Pasta's Niece. {139a}

WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 4/72.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I like your Fraser Paper very much, and recognised some points we had
talked of together, {139b} but nothing that I can claim as my own.  I
suppose that I think on these points as very many educated men do think;
I mean as to Principles of Art.  I am not sure I understand your word
'Imagination' as opposed to realistic (d---d word) detail at p. 26, but I
suppose I suppose I know what is meant, nevertheless, and agree with
that.  Is the Prophet of p. 24 _Gurlyle_? {139c}  I think so.  The fine
head of him which figures as Frontispiece to the People's Edition of
Sartor made me think of a sad Old Prophet; so that I bought the Book for
the Portrait only.

The 'Brown Umbrella' pleased me greatly.

Well; and I thought there were other Papers in Fraser which made me think
that, on the whole, I would take in Fraser rather than the Cornhill which
you advised.  Perhaps I am just now out of tune for Novels; whether that
be so or not, I don't get an Appetite for Annie Thackeray's {140} from
the two Numbers I have had.

And here is Spedding's vol. vi. which leaves me much where it found me
about Bacon: but though I scarce care for him, I can read old Spedding's
pleading for him for ever; that is, old Spedding's simple statement of
the case, as he sees it.  The Ralegh Business is quite delightful, better
than Old Kensington.

Then I have bought 3 vols of the '_Ladies Magazine_' for 1750-3 by
'Jasper Goodwill' who died at Vol. iv.  It contains the Trials and
Executions (16 men at a time) of the time; _Miss Blandy_ above all; and
such delightful Essays, Poems, and Enigmas, for _Ladies_!  The Allegories
are in the Rasselas style, all Oriental.  The Essays 'of all the Virtues
which adorn, etc.'  Then Anecdotes of the Day: as of a Country woman in
St. James' Park taking on because she cannot go home till she has kissed
the King's hand: one of the Park keepers tells one of the Pages, who
tells the King, who has the Woman in to kiss his hand, and take some
money beside.  One wonders there weren't heaps of such loyal Subjects.

Mowbray Donne wrote me that he sent you the Fragments I had saved and
transcribed of Morton's Letters; the best part having been lost by
Blackwood's People thirty years ago, as I believe I told you.  But don't
you think what remains capital?  I wish you would get them put into some
Magazine, just for the sake of some of our Day getting them in Print.  You
might just put a word of Preface as to the Author: an Irish Gentleman, of
Estate and Fortune (which of course went the Irish way), who was Scholar,
Artist, Newspaper Correspondent, etc.  A dozen lines would tell all that
is wanted, naming no names.  It might be called 'Fragments of Letters by
an "Ill-starred" or "Unlucky" Man of Genius,' etc. as S. M. was:
'Unlucky' being still used in Suffolk, with something of Ancient Greek
meaning.  See if you cannot get this done, will you?  For I think many of
S. M.'s friends would be glad of it: and the general Public assuredly not
the worse.  Some of the names would need some correction, I think: and
the Letters to be put in order of Time. {141a}  'Do it!' as Julia in the
Hunchback says.

[1872.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I went to London at the end of last week, on my way to Sydenham, where my
second Brother is staying, whom I had not seen these six years, nor his
Wife. . . .  On Saturday I went to the Academy, for little else but to
see Millais, and to disagree with you about him!  I thought his three
Women and his Highlanders brave pictures, which you think also; but
braver than you think them.  The Women looked alive: the right Eye so
much smaller than the left in the Figure looking at you that I suppose it
was so in the original, so that I should have chosen one of the other
Sisters for the position.  I could not see any analogy between the
Picture and Sir Joshua's Graces, except that there were Three.  Nor could
I think the Highlanders in the Landscape vulgar; they seemed to me in
character with the Landscape.  Both Pictures want tone, which may mean
Glazing: wanting which they may last the longer, and sober down of
themselves without the danger of cracking by any transparent Colour laid
over them.

I scarce looked at anything else, not having much time.  Just as I was
going out, who should come up to me but Annie Thackeray, who took my
hands as really glad to see her Father's old friend.  I am sure she was;
and I was taken aback somehow; and, out of sheer awkwardness, began to
tell her that I didn't care for her new Novel!  And then, after she had
left her Party to come to me, I ran off!  It is true, I had to be back at
Sydenham: but it would have been better to forgo all that: and so I
reflected when I had got halfway down Piccadilly: and so ran back, and
went into the Academy again: but could not find A. T.  She told me she
was going to Normandy this week: and I have been so vext with myself that
I have written to tell her something of what I have told you.  It was
very stupid indeed.

WOODBRIDGE: _November_ 1, [1872].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

The Spectator, as also the Athenaeum, somewhat over-praise Gareth, I
think: but I am glad they do so. . . .  The Poem seems to me scarce more
worthy of what A. T. was born to do than the other Idylls; but you will
almost think it is out of contradiction that I like it better: except, of
course, the original Morte.  The Story of this young Knight, who can
submit and conquer and do all the Devoir of Chivalry, interests me much
more than the Enids, Lily Maids, etc. of former Volumes.  But Time
_is_--Time _was_--to have done with the whole Concern: pure and noble as
all is, and in parts more beautiful than any one else can do. . . .

Rain--Rain--Rain!  What will become of poor Italy?  I think we ought to
subscribe for her.  Did you read of one French Caricature of the Pope
leaving Rome with the Holy Ghost in a Bird Cage?

WOODBRIDGE, _Nov._ 20.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I am glad the Rogers Verses {144} gratified you.  I forget where I saw
them quoted, some ten years ago; but as I had long wished for them
myself, and thought others might wish for them also, I got them reprinted
here in the form I sent you. . . .  I have no compunction at all in
reviving this Satire upon the old Banker, whom it is only paying off in
his own Coin.  Spedding (of course) used to deny that R. deserved his ill
Reputation: but I never heard any one else deny it.  All his little
malignities, unless the epigram on Ward be his, are dead along with his
little sentimentalities; while Byron's Scourge hangs over his Memory.  The
only one who, so far as I have seen, has given any idea of his little
cavilling style, is Mrs. Trench in her Letters; her excellent Letters, so
far as I can see and judge, next best to Walpole and Cowper in our
Language. . . .

I have bought Regnard, of the old Moliere times, very good; and (what is
always odd to me) as French as the French of To-day: I mean, in point of
Language.

[_Nov._ 1872.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

In a late Box of books which I had from Mudie were Macmillan and Fraser,
for 1869-1870.  And in one of these--I am nearly sure, Macmillan--is an
Article called 'Objects of Art' {145} which treats very well, I think, on
the subject you and I talked of at Whitsun. . . .

My new Reader . . . has been reading to me Fields' 'Yesterdays with
Authors,' Hawthorne, Dickens, Thackeray.  The latter seems to me a
Caricature: the Dickens has one wonderful bit about Macready in 1869,
which ought not to have been printed during his Life, but which I will
copy out for you if you have not seen it.  Hawthorne seems to me the most
of a Man of Genius America has produced in the way of Imagination: yet I
have never found an Appetite for his Books.  Frederic Tennyson sent me
Victor Hugo's 'Toilers of the Sea,' which he admires, I suppose; but I
can't get up an Appetite for that neither.  I think the Scenes being laid
in the Channel Islands may have something to do with old Frederic's
Liking. . . .

The Daily News only tells me of Crisises in France, Floods in Italy,
Insubordination of London Policemen, and Desertion from the British Army.
So I take refuge in other Topics.  Do look for 'Objects of Art' among
them.

Which are you for

   Noi leggiavamo }
   or } un giorno per diletto? {146a}
   Noi leggevamo }

WOODBRIDGE: _Nov._ 28 [1872].

'Multae Epistolae pertransibunt et augebitur Scientia.'  Our one Man of
Books down here, Brooke, {146b} had told me that the old Editions on the
whole favoured 'legg_ia_vamo.'  Now I shall tell him that the Germans
have decided on 'leggevamo.'  But Brooke quotes one Copy (1502) which
reads 'leggev_am_,' which I had also wished for, to get rid of a fifth
(and superfluous) _o_ in the line.  I suppose such a plural is as
allowable as

   Noi andav_am_ per lo solingo Piano, etc.

What is all this erudite Enquiry about?  I was talking with Edwards one
night of this passage, and of this line in particular, which came into my
head as a motto for a Device {146c} we were talking of; and hence all
this precious fuss.

But I want to tell you what I forgot in my last letter; what Dickens
himself says of his 'Holyday Romance' in a letter to Fields.

   _July_ 25, 1867.

   'I hope the Americans will see the joke of Holyday Romance.  The
   writing seems to me so much like Children's, that dull folk (on _any_
   side of _any_ water) might perhaps rate it accordingly.  I should like
   to be beside you when you read it, and particularly when you read the
   Pirate's Story.  It made me laugh to that extent that my people here
   thought I was out of my wits: until I gave it to them to read, when
   they did likewise.'

One thinks, what a delightful thing to be such an Author!  Yet he died of
his work, I suppose.

WOODBRIDGE, _Jan_, 5/73.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I don't know that I have anything to tell you, except a Story which I
have already written to Donne and to Mrs. Kemble, all the way to Rome,
out of a French Book. {147}  I just now forget the name, and it is gone
back to Mudie.  About 1783, or a little later, a young _Danseur_ of the
French Opera falls in love with a young _Danseuse_ of the same.  She,
however, takes up with a 'Militaire,' who indeed commands the Guard who
are on Service at the Opera.  The poor Danseur gets mad with jealousy:
attacks the Militaire on his post; who just bids his Soldiers tie the
poor Lad to a Column, without further Injury.  The Lad, though otherwise
unhurt, falls ill of Shame and Jealousy; and dies, after bequeathing his
Skeleton to the Doctor attached to the Opera, with an understanding that
the said Skeleton is to be kept in the Doctor's Room at the Opera.
Somehow, this Skeleton keeps its place through Revolutions, and Changes
of Dynasty: and re-appears on the Scene when some Diablerie is on foot,
as in Freischutz; where, says the Book, it still produces a certain
effect.  I forgot to say that the _Subject_ wished to be in that Doctor's
Room in order that he might still be near his Beloved when she danced.

Now, is not this a capital piece of French all over?

In Sophie Gay's 'Salons de Paris' {148} I read that when Madlle Contat
(the Predecessor of Mars) was learning under Preville and his Wife for
the Stage, she gesticulated too much, as Novices do.  So the Previlles
confined her Arms like '_une Momie_' she says, and then set her off with
a Scene.  So long as no great Passion, or Business, was needed, she felt
pretty comfortable, she says: but when the Dialogue grew hot, then she
could not help trying to get her hands free; and _that_, as the Previlles
told her, sufficiently told her when Action should begin, and not till
then, whether in Grave or Comic.  This anecdote (told by Contat herself)
has almost an exact counterpart in Mrs. Siddons' practice: who recited
even Lear's Curse with her hands and arms close to her side like an
Egyptian Figure, and Sir Walter Scott, {149a} who heard her, said nothing
could be more terrible. . . .

The Egyptian Mummy reminds me of a clever, dashing, Book we are reading
on the subject, by Mr. Zincke, Vicar of a Village {149b} near Ipswich.
Did you know, or do you believe, that the Mummy was wrapt up into its
Chrysalis Shape as an Emblem of Future Existence; wrapt up, too, in
bandages all inscribed with ritualistic directions for its intermediate
stage, which was not one of total Sleep?  I supposed that this might be a
piece of ingenious Fancy: but Cowell, who has been over to see me, says
it is probable.

I have brought my Eyes by careful nursing into sufficient strength to
read Moliere, and Montaigne, and two or three more of my old 'Standards'
with all my old Relish.  But I must not presume on this; and ought to
spare your Eyes as well as my own in respect of this letter.

WOODBRIDGE, _Jan._ /73.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I have not been reading so much of my Gossip lately, to send you a good
little Bit of, which I think may do you a good turn now and then.  Give a
look at 'Egypt of the Pharaohs' by Zincke, Vicar of a Parish near
Woodbridge; the Book is written in a light, dashing (but not Cockney
pert) way, easily looked over.  There is a supposed Soliloquy of an
English Labourer (called 'Hodge') as contrasted with the Arab, which is
capital.

Do you know Taschereau's Life of Moliere?  I have only got that prefixed
to a common Edition of 1730.  But even this is a delightful serio-comic
Drama.  I see that H. Heine says the French are all born Actors: which
always makes me wonder why they care so for the Theatre.  Heine too, I
find, speaks of V. Hugo's Worship of Ugliness; of which I find so much in
--- and other modern Artists, Literary, Musical, or Graphic. . . .

What, you tell me, Palgrave said about me, I should have thought none but
a very partial Friend, like Donne, would ever have thought of saying.  But
I'll say no more on that head.  Only that, as regards the little
Dialogue, {150} I think it is a very pretty thing in Form, and with some
very pretty parts in it.  But when I read it two or three years ago,
there was, I am sure, some over-smart writing, and some clumsy wording;
insomuch that, really liking the rest, I cut out about a sheet, and
substituted another, and made a few corrections with a Pen in what
remained, though plenty more might be made, little as the Book is.  Well;
as you like this little Fellow, and I think he is worth liking, up to a
Point, I shall send you a Copy of these amended Sheets.

[_March_ 1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

7.15 p.m.  After a stroll in mine own Garden, under the moon--shoes
kicked off--Slippers and Dressing Gown on--A Pinch of Snuff--and hey for
a Letter--to my only London Correspondent!

And to London have I been since my last Letter: and have seen the Old
Masters; and finished them off by such a Symphony as was worthy of the
best of them, two Acts of Mozart's 'Cosi.'  You wrote me that you had
'assisted' at that also: the Singing, as you know, was inferior: but the
Music itself!  Between the Acts a Man sang a song of Verdi's: which was a
strange Contrast, to be sure: one of Verdi's heavy Airs, however: for he
has a true Genius of his own, though not Mozart's.  Well: I did not like
even Mozart's two Bravuras for the Ladies: a bad Despina for one: but the
rest was fit for--Raffaelle, whose Christ in the Garden I had been
looking at a little before.  I had thought Titian's Cornaro, and a Man in
Black, by a Column, worth nearly all the rest of the Gallery till I saw
the Raffaelle: and I couldn't let that go with the others.  All Lord
Radnor's Pictures were new to me, and nearly all very fine.  The Vandykes
delightful: Rubens' Daniel, though all by his own hand, not half so good
as a Return from Hunting, which perhaps was not: the Sir Joshuas not
first rate, I think, except a small life Figure of a Sir W. Molesworth in
Uniform: the Gainsboro's scratchy and superficial, _I_ thought: the
Romneys better, _I_ thought.  Two fine Cromes: Ditto Turners: and--I will
make an End of my Catalogue Raisonnee. . . .

I suppose you never read Beranger's Letters: there are four thick Volumes
of these, of which I have as yet only seen the Second and Third: and they
are well worth reading.  They make one love Beranger: partly because (odd
enough) he is so little of a Frenchman in Character, French as his Works
are.  He hated Paris, Plays, Novels, Journals, Critics, etc., hated being
monstered himself as a Great Man, as he proved by flying from it; seems
to me to take a just measure of himself and others, and to be moderate in
his Political as well as Literary Opinions.

I am hoping for Forster's second volume of Dickens in Mudie's forthcoming
Box.  Meanwhile, my Boy (whom I momently expect) reads me Trollope's 'He
knew he was right,' the opening of which I think very fine: but which
seems to be trailing off into 'longueur' as I fancy Trollope is apt to
do.  But he 'has a world of his own,' as Tennyson said of Crabbe.

_March_ 30/73.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . You have never told me how you thought him [Spedding] looking,
etc., though you told me that your Boy Maurice went to sit with him.  It
really reminds me of some happy Athenian lad who was privileged to be
with Socrates.  Some Plato should put down the Conversation.

I have just finished the second volume of Forster's Dickens: and still
have no reason not to rejoice in the Man Dickens.  And surely Forster
does his part well; but I can fancy that some other Correspondent but
himself should be drawn in as Dickens' Life goes on, and thickens with
Acquaintances.

We in the Country are having the best of it just now, I think, in these
fine Days, though we have nothing to show so gay as Covent Garden Market.
I am thinking of my Boat on the River. . . .

You say I did not date my last letter: I can date this: for it is my
Birthday. {153}  This it was that made me resolve to send you the Photos.
Hey for my 65th year!  I think I shall plunge into a Yellow Scratch Wig
to keep my head warm for the Remainder of my Days.

* * * * *

In September 1863 Mr. Ruskin addressed a letter to 'The Translator of the
Rubaiyat of Omar,' which he entrusted to Mrs. Burne Jones, who after an
interval of nearly ten years handed it to Mr. Charles Eliot Norton,
Professor of the History of Fine Art in Harvard University.  By him it
was transmitted to Carlyle, who sent it to FitzGerald, with the letter
which follows, of which the signature alone is in his own handwriting.

* * * * *

CHELSEA, 14 _April_, 1873.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

Mr. Norton, the writer of that note, is a distinguished American
(co-editor for a long time of the North American Review), an extremely
amiable, intelligent and worthy man; with whom I have had some pleasant
walks, dialogues and other communications, of late months;--in the course
of which he brought to my knowledge, for the first time, your notable
_Omar Khayyam_, and insisted on giving me a copy from the third edition,
which I now possess, and duly prize.  From him too, by careful
cross-questioning, I identified, beyond dispute, the hidden 'Fitzgerald,'
the Translator;--and indeed found that his complete silence, and unique
modesty in regard to said meritorious and successful performance, was
simply a feature of my own _Edward F._!  The translation is excellent;
the Book itself a kind of jewel in its way.  I do Norton's mission
without the least delay, as you perceive.  Ruskin's message to you passes
through my hands sealed.  I am ever your affectionate

T. CARLYLE.

_Carlyle to Norton_.

5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA,
18 _April_ 1873.

DEAR NORTON,

It is possible Fitzgerald may have written to you; but whether or not I
will send you his letter to myself, as a slight emblem and memorial of
the peaceable, affectionate, and ultra modest man, and his innocent _far
niente_ life,--and the connexion (were there nothing more) of Omar, the
Mahometan Blackguard, and Oliver Cromwell, the English
Puritan!--discharging you completely, at the same time, from ever
returning me this letter, or taking any notice of it, except a small
silent one.

_FitzGerald to Carlyle_.

(Enclosed in the preceding.)

[15 _April_ 1873.]

MY DEAR CARLYLE,

Thank you for enclosing Mr. Norton's Letter: and will you thank him for
his enclosure of Mr. Ruskin's?  It is lucky for both R. and me that you
did not read his Note; a sudden fit of Fancy, I suppose, which he is
subject to.  But as it was kindly meant on his part, I have written to
thank him.  Rather late in the Day; for his Letter (which Mr. Norton
thinks may have lain a year or two in his Friend's Desk) is dated
September 1863.

Which makes me think of our old Naseby Plans, so long talked of, and
undone.  I have made one more effort since I last wrote to you; by
writing to the Lawyer, as well as to the Agent, of the Estate; to
intercede with the Trustees thereof, whose permission seems to be
necessary.  But neither Agent nor Lawyer have yet answered.  I feel sure
that you believe that I do honestly wish this thing to be done; the plan
of the Stone, and Inscription, both settled: the exact site ascertained
by some who were with me when I dug for you: so as we can even specify
the so many 'yards to the rear' which you stipulated for: only I believe
we must write 'to the East--or Eastward'--in lieu of 'to the rear.'  But
for this Change we must have your Permission as well as from the Trustees
theirs.

I am glad to hear from Mr. Norton's Letter to you that you hold well,
through all the Wet and Cold we have had for the last six months.  Our
Church Bell here has been tolling for one and another of us very
constantly.  I get out on the River in my Boat, and dabble about my five
acres of Ground just outside the Town.  Sometimes I have thought you
might come to my pleasant home, where I never live, but where you should
be treated with better fare than you had at Farlingay: where I did not
like to disturb the Hostess' Economy.  But I may say this: you would not
come; nor could I press you to do so.  But I remain yours sincerely, I
assure you,

E. F. G.

P.S.  Perhaps I had better write a word of thanks to Mr. Norton myself:
which I will do.  I suppose he may be found at the address he gives.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE, _April_ 17/73.

DEAR SIR,

Two days ago Mr. Carlyle sent me your Note, enclosing one from Mr. Ruskin
'to the Translator of Omar Khayyam.'  You will be a little surprized to
hear that Mr. Ruskin's Note is dated September 1863: all but ten years
ago!  I dare say he has forgotten all about it long before this: however,
I write him a Note of Thanks for the good, too good, messages he sent me;
better late than never; supposing that he will not be startled and bored
by my Acknowledgments of a forgotten Favor rather than gratified.  It is
really a funny little Episode in the Ten years' Dream.  I had asked
Carlyle to thank you also for such trouble as you have taken in the
matter.  But, as your Note to him carries your Address, I think I may as
well thank you for myself.  I am very glad to gather from your Note that
Carlyle is well, and able to walk, as well as talk, with a congenial
Companion.  Indeed, he speaks of such agreeable conversation with you in
the Message he appends to your Letter.  For which thanking you once more,
allow me to write myself yours sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[5 _May_, 1873.]

DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . I see that you were one of those who were at Macready's Funeral.  I,
too, feel as if I had lost a Friend, though I scarce knew him but on the
Stage.  But there I knew him as Virginius very well, when I was a Boy
(about 1821), and when Miss Foote was his Daughter.  Jackson's Drawing of
him in that Character is among the best of such Portraits, surely.  I
think I shall have a word about M. from Mrs. Kemble, with whom I have
been corresponding a little since her return to England.  She has lately
been staying with her Son-in-Law, Mr. Leigh, at Stoneleigh Vicarage, near
Kenilworth.  In the Autumn she says she will go to America, never to
return to England.  But I tell her she will return. . . .

My Eyes have been leaving me in the lurch again: partly perhaps from
taxing them with a little more Reading: partly from going on the Water,
and straining after our River Beacons, in hot Sun and East Wind; partly
also, and _main partly_ I doubt, from growing so much older and the worse
for wear.  I am afraid this very Letter will be troublesome to you to
read: but I must write at a Gallop if at all. . . .

[1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . This is Sunday Night: 10 p.m.  And what is the Evening Service
which I have been listening to?  The 'Eustace Diamonds': which interest
me almost as much as Tichborne.  I really give the best proof I can of
the Interest I take in Trollope's Novels, by constantly breaking out into
Argument with the Reader (who never replies) about what is said and done
by the People in the several Novels.  I say 'No, no!  She must have known
she was lying!'  'He couldn't have been such a Fool! etc.'

[1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . I am very shy of 'The Greatest Poem,' The Greatest Picture,
Symphony, etc., but one single thing I always was assured of: that 'The
School' was the best Comedy in the English Language.  Not wittier than
Congreve, etc., but with Human Character that one likes in it; Charles,
both Teazles, Sir Oliver, etc.  Whereas the Congreve School inspires no
sympathy with the People: who are Manners not Men, you know.  Voila de
suffisamment perore a ce sujet-la. . . .  I set my Reader last night on
beginning The Mill on the Floss.  I couldn't take to it more than to
others I have tried to read by the Greatest Novelist of the Day: but I
will go on a little further.  Oh for some more brave Trollope; who I am
sure conceals a much profounder observation than these Dreadful Denners
of Romance under his lightsome and sketchy touch, as Gainboro compared to
Denner.

[_July_ 1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Thank you for the Fraser, and your Paper in it: which I relished very
much for its Humour, Discrimination, and easy style; like all you write.
Perhaps I should not agree with you about all the Pictures: but you do
not give me any great desire to put that to the test.

Max Muller's Darwin Paper reminded me of an Observation in Bacon's Sylva;
{160} that Apes and Monkeys, with Organs of Speech so much like Man's
have never been taught to speak an Articulate word: whereas Parrots and
Starlings, with organs so unlike Man's, are easily taught to do so.  Do
you know if Darwin, or any of his Followers, or Antagonists, advert to
this?

I have been a wonderful Journey--for me--even to Naseby in
Northamptonshire; to authenticate the spot where I dug up some bones of
those slain there, for Gurlyle thirty years ago.  We are to put up a
Stone there to record the fact, if we can get leave of the present Owners
of the Field; a permission, one would think, easy enough to obtain; but I
have been more than a Year trying to obtain it, notwithstanding; and do
not know that I am nearer the point after all.  The Owner is a Minor: and
three Trustees must sanction the thing for him; and these three Trustees
are all great People, all living in different parts of England; and, I
suppose, forgetful of such a little matter, though their Estate-agent,
and Lawyer, represented it to them long ago.

I stayed at Cambridge some three hours on my way, so as to look at some
of the Old, and New, Buildings, which I had not seen these dozen years
and more.  The Hall of Trinity looked to me very fine; and Sir Joshua's
Duke of Gloucester the most beautiful thing in it.  I looked into the
Chapel, where they were at work: the Roof seemed to me being overdone:
and Roubiliac's Newton is now nowhere, between the Statues of Bacon and
Barrow which are executed on a larger scale. {161}  And what does
Spedding say to Macaulay in that Company?  I never saw Cambridge so
empty, but not the less pleasant.

[1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Two or three years ago I had three or four of my Master-pieces done up
together for admiring Friends.  It has occurred to me to send you one of
these instead of the single Dialogue which I was looking in the Box for.
I think you have seen, or had, all the things but the last, {162} which
is the most impudent of all.  It was, however, not meant for Scholars:
mainly for Mrs. Kemble: but as I can't read myself, nor expect others of
my age to read a long MS.  I had it printed by a cheap friend (to the
bane of other Friends), and here it is.  You will see by the notice that
AEschylus is left 'nowhere,' and why; a modest proviso.  Still I think
the Story is well compacted: the Dialogue good, (with one single little
originality; of riding into Rhyme as Passion grows) and the Choruses
(mostly 'rot' quoad Poetry) still serving to carry on the subject of the
Story in the way of Inter-act.  Try one or two Women with a dose of it
one day; not Lady Pollock, who knows better. . . .  When I look over the
little Prose Dialogue, I see lots that might be weeded.  I wonder at one
word which is already crossed--'_Emergency_.'  'An Emergency!'  I think
Blake could have made a Picture of it as he did of the Flea.  Something
of the same disgusting Shape too. . . .  Blake seems to me to have fine
things: but as by random, like those of a Child, or a Madman, of Genius.
Is there one good whole Piece, of ever so few lines? . . .

What do you think of a French saying quoted by Heine, that when 'Le bon
Dieu' gets rather bored in Heaven, he opens the windows, and takes a look
at the Boulevards?  Heine's account of the Cholera in France is
wonderful.

[1873.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

I am wondering in what Idiom you will one day answer my last. {163a}
Meanwhile, I have to thank you for Lady Pollock's Article on American
Literature: which I like, as all of hers.  Only, I cannot understand her
Admiration of Emerson's 'Humble Bee'; which, without her Comment, I
should have taken for a Burlesque on Barry Cornwall, or some of that
London School.  Surely, that 'Animated Torrid Zone' without which 'All is
Martyrdom,' etc., is rather out of Proportion.  I wish she had been able
to tell us that ten copies of Crabbe sold in America for one in England:
rather than Philip of Artevelde.  Perhaps Crabbe does too.  What do you
and Miladi think of these two Lines of his which returned to me the other
day?  Talking of poor Vagrants, etc.,

   Whom Law condemns, and Justice with a Sigh
   Pursuing, shakes her Sword, and passes by. {163b}

There are heaps of such things lying hid in the tangle of Crabbe's
careless verse; and yet such things, you know, are not the best of him,
the distressing Old Man!  Who would expect such a Prettyness as this of
him?

   As of fair Virgins dancing in a round,
   Each binds the others, and herself is bound--{163c}

so the several Callings and Duties of Men in Civilized Life, etc.  Come!
If Lady Pollock will write the Reason of all this, I will supply her with
a Lot of it without her having the trouble of looking through all the
eight volumes for it.  I really can do little more than like, or dislike,
Dr. Fell, without a further Reason: which is none at all, though it may
be a very good one.  So I distinguish _Phil_-osophers, and
_Fell_-osophers; which is rather a small piece of Wit.  And I don't like
the Humble Bee; and won't like the Humble Bee, in spite of all the good
reasons Miladi gives why I should; and so tell her: and tell her to
forgive hers and yours always,

E. F. G.

_To W. B. Donne_.

ALDE COTTAGE, ALDEBURGH.
_August_ 18, [1873].

MY DEAR DONNE,

There being a change of servants in Market Hill, Woodbridge, I came here
for a week, bringing Tacitus {164} in my Pocket.  You know I don't
pretend to judge of History: I can only say that you tell the Story of
Tacitus' own Life, and of what he has to tell of others, very readably
indeed to my Thinking: and so far I think my Thinking is to be relied on.
Some of the Translations from T. by your other hands read so well also
that I have wished to get at the original.  But I really want an Edition
such as you promised to begin upon.  Thirty years ago I thought I could
make out these Latins and Greeks sufficiently well for my own purpose; I
do not think so now; and want good help of other men's Scholarship, and
also of better Eyes than my own.

I am not sure if you were ever at this place: I fancy you once were.  It
is duller even than it used to be: because of even the Fishing having
almost died away.  But the Sea and the Shore remain the same; as to Nero,
in that famous passage {165} I remember you pointed out to me: not quite
so sad to me as to him, but not very lively.  I have brought a volume or
two of Walpole's Letters by way of amusement.  I wish you were here; and
I will wait here if you care to come.  Might not the Sea Air do you good?

_To T. Carlyle_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Septr._ 8/73.

MY DEAR CARLYLE,

Enclosed is the Naseby Lawyer's answer on behalf of the Naseby Trustees.
I think it will seem marvellous in your Eyes, as it does in mine.

You will see that I had suggested whether moving the _Obelisk_, the
'foolish Obelisk,' might not be accomplished in case The Stone were
rejected.  You see also that my Lawyer offers his mediation in the matter
if wished.  I cannot believe the Trustees would listen to this Scheme any
more than to the other.  Nor do I suppose you would be satisfied with the
foolish Obelisk's Inscription, which warns Kings not to exceed their just
Prerogative, nor Subjects [to swerve from] their lawful Obedience, etc.,
but does not say that it stands on the very spot where the Ashes of the
Dead told of the final Struggle.

I say, I do not suppose any good will come of this second Application.
The Trouble is nothing to me; but I will not trouble this Lawyer, Agent,
etc., till I hear from you that you wish me to do so.  I suppose you are
now away from Chelsea; I hope among your own old places in the North.  For
I think, and I find, that as one grows old one returns to one's old
haunts.  However, my letter will reach you sooner or later, I dare say:
and, if one may judge from what has passed, there will be no hurry in any
future Decision of the 'Three Incomprehensibles.'

I have nothing to tell of myself; having been nowhere but to that Naseby.
I am among my old haunts: so have not to travel.  But I shall be very
glad to hear that you are the better for having done so; and remain your
ancient Bedesman,

E. F. G.

_From T. Carlyle_.

THE HILL, DUMFRIES, N.B.
13 _Sep._, 1873.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

There is something at once pathetic and ridiculous and altogether
miserable and contemptible in the fact you at last announce that by one
caprice and another of human folly perversity and general length of ear,
our poor little enterprize is definitively forbidden to us.  Alas, our
poor little 'inscription,' so far as I remember it, was not more criminal
than that of a number on a milestone; in fact the whole adventure was
like that of setting up an authentic _milestone_ in a tract of country
(spiritual and physical) mournfully in want of measurement; that was
_our_ highly innocent offer had the unfortunate Rulers of the Element in
that quarter been able to perceive it at all!  Well; since they haven't,
one thing at least is clear, that our attempt is finished, and that from
this hour we will devoutly give it up.  That of shifting the now existing
pyramid from Naseby village and rebuilding it on Broadmoor seems to me
entirely inadmissible;--and in fact unless _you_ yourself should resolve,
which I don't counsel, on marking, by way of foot-note, on the now
existing pyramid, accurately how many yards off and in what direction the
real battle ground lies from it, there is nothing visible to me which can
without ridiculous impropriety be done.

The trouble and bother you have had with all this, which I know are very
great, cannot be repaid you, dear old friend, except by my pious
thankfulness, which I can well assure you shall not be wanting.  But
actual _money_, much or little, which the surrounding blockheads
connected with this matter have first and last cost you, this I do
request that you will accurately sum up that I may pay the half of it, as
is my clear debt and right.  This I do still expect from you; after which
_Finis_ upon this matter for ever and a day. . . .

Good be ever with you, dear FitzGerald,
I am and remain Yours truly
(_Signed_) T. CARLYLE.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[16 _Dec._ 1873.]

. . . What do you think I am reading?  Voltaire's 'Pucelle': the Epic he
was fitted for.  It is poor in Invention, I think: but wonderful for easy
Wit, and the Verse much more agreeable to me than the regularly rhymed
Alexandrines.  I think Byron was indebted to it in his Vision of
Judgment, and Juan: his best works.  There are fine things too: as when
Grisbourdon suddenly slain tells his Story to the Devils in Hell where he
unexpectedly makes his Appearance,

   Et tout l'Enfer en rit d'assez bon coeur.

This is nearer the Sublime, I fancy, than anything in the Henriade.  And
one Canto ends:

   J'ai dans mon temps possede des maitresses,
   Et j'aime encore a retrouver mon coeur--

is very pretty in the old Sinner. . . .

I am engaged in preparing to depart from these dear Rooms where I have
been thirteen years, and don't know yet where I am going. {169}

_To John Allen_.

GRANGE FARM: WOODBRIDGE
_Febr_: 21/74.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

While I was reading a volume of Ste. Beuve at Lowestoft a Fortnight ago,
I wondered if you got on with him; j'avais envie de vous ecrire une
petite Lettre a ce sujet: but I let it go by.  Now your Letter comes; and
I will write: only a little about S. B. however, only that: the Volume I
had with me was vol. III. of my Edition (I don't know if yours is the
same), and I thought you [would] like _all_ of three Causeries in it:
Rousseau, Frederick the Great, and Daguesseau: the rest you might not so
much care for: nor I neither.

Hare's Spain was agreeable to hear read: I have forgot all about it.  His
'Memorials' were insufferably tiresome to me.  You don't speak of
Tichborne, which I never tire of: only wondering that the Lord Chief
Justice sets so much Brains to work against so foolish a Bird. {170}  The
Spectator on Carlyle is very good, I think.  As to Politics I scarce
meddle with them.  I have been glad to revert to Don Quixote, which I
read easily enough in the Spanish: it is so delightful that I don't
grudge looking into a Dictionary for the words I forget.  It won't do in
English; or _has not done_ as yet: the English colloquial is not the
Spanish do.  It struck me oddly that--of all things in the world!--Sir
Thomas Browne's Language might suit.

They now sell at the Railway Stalls Milnes' Life of Keats for half a
crown, as well worth the money as any Book.  I would send you a Copy if
you liked: as I bought three or four to give away.

You may see that I have changed my Address: obliged to leave the Lodging
where I had been thirteen years: and to come here to my own house, while
another Lodging is getting ready, which I doubt I shall not inhabit, as
it will entail Housekeeping on me.  But I like to keep my house for my
Nieces: it is not my fault they do not make it their home.

Ever yours, E. F. G.

_To S. Laurence_.

GRANGE FARM, WOODBRIDGE.
_February_ 26/74.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I am not very solicitous about the Likeness {171} as I might be of
some dear Friend; but I was willing to have a Portrait of the Poet whom I
am afraid I read more than any other of late and with whose Family (as
you know) I am kindly connected.  The other Portrait, which you wanted to
see, and I hope have not seen, is by Phillips; and just represents what I
least wanted, Crabbe's company look; whereas Pickersgill represents the
Thinker.  So I fancy, at least.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
[_July_ 4/74.]

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I am (for a wonder) going out on a few days' visit. . . .  And,
once out, I meditate a run to Edinburgh, only to see where Sir Walter
Scott lived and wrote about.  But as I have meditated this great
Enterprize for these thirty years, it may perhaps now end again in
meditation only. . . .

I am just finishing Forster's Dickens: very good, I think: only, he has
no very nice perception of Character, I think, or chooses not to let his
readers into it.  But there is enough to show that Dickens was a very
noble fellow as well as a very wonderful one. . . .  I, for one, worship
Dickens, in spite of Carlyle and the Critics: and wish to see his
Gadshill as I wished to see Shakespeare's Stratford and Scott's
Abbotsford.  One must love the Man for that.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_July_ 23, [1874].

But I did get to Abbotsford, and was rejoiced to find it was not at all
Cockney, not a Castle, but only in the half-castellated style of heaps of
other houses in Scotland; the Grounds simply and broadly laid out before
the windows, down to a field, down to the Tweed, with the woods which he
left so little, now well aloft and flourishing, and I was glad.  I could
not find my way to Maida's Grave in the Garden, with its false Quantity,

   Ad januam Domini, etc.

which the Whigs and Critics taunted Scott with, and Lockhart had done it.
'You know I don't care a curse about what I write'; nor about what was
imputed to him.  In this, surely like Shakespeare: as also in other
respects.  I will worship him, in spite of Gurlyle, who sent me an ugly
Autotype of Knox whom I was to worship instead.

Then I went to see Jedburgh {172} Abbey, in a half ruined corner of which
he lies entombed--Lockhart beside him--a beautiful place, with his own
Tweed still running close by, and his Eildon Hills looking on.  The man
who drove me about showed me a hill which Sir Walter was very fond of
visiting, from which he could see over the Border, etc.  This hill is
between Abbotsford and Jedburgh: {173} and when his Coach horses, who
drew his Hearse, got there, to that hill, they could scarce be got on.

My mission to Scotland was done; but some civil pleasant people, whom I
met at Abbotsford, made me go with them (under Cook's guidance) to the
Trossachs, Katrine, Lomond, etc., which I did not care at all about; but
it only took a day.  After which, I came in a day to London, rather glad
to be in my old flat land again, with a sight of my old Sea as we came
along.

And in London I went to see my dear old Donne, because of wishing to
assure myself, with my own eyes, of his condition; and I can safely say
he looked better than before his Illness, near two years ago.  He had a
healthy colour; was erect, alert, and with his old humour, and interest
in our old topics. . . .

I looked in at the Academy, as poor a show as ever I had seen, I thought;
only Millais attracted me: a Boy with a red Sash: and that old Seaman
with his half-dreaming Eyes while the Lassie reads to him.  I had no
Catalogue: and so thought the Book was--The Bible--to which she was
drawing his thoughts, while the sea-breeze through the open Window
whispered of his old Life to him.  But I was told afterwards (at Donne's
indeed) that it was some account of a N. W. Passage she was reading.  The
Roll Call I could not see, for a three deep file of worshippers before
it: I only saw the 'hairy Cap' as Thackeray in his Ballad, {174} and I
supposed one would see all in a Print as well as in the Picture.  But the
Photo of Miss Thompson herself gives me a very favourable impression of
her.  It really looks, in face and dress, like some of Sir Joshua's
Women. . . .

Another Miss Austen!  Of course under Spedding's Auspices, the Father of
Evil.

_From W. H. Thompson to W. A. Wright_.

On 17 July 1883, shortly after FitzGerald's death, the late Master of
Trinity wrote to me from Harrogate, 'As regards FitzGerald's letters, I
have preserved a good many, which I will look through when we return to
College.  I have a long letter from Carlyle to him, which F. gave me.  It
is a Carlylesque etude on Spedding, written from dictation by his niece,
but signed by the man himself in a breaking hand.  The thing is to my
mind more characteristic of T. Carlyle than of James Spedding--that
"victorious man" as C. calls him.  He seems unaware of one distinguishing
feature of J. S.'s mind--its subtlety of perception--and the excellence
of his English style escapes his critic, whose notices on that subject by
the bye would not necessarily command assent.'

_From Thomas Carlyle_.

5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA
6 _Nov._ 1874.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

Thanks for your kind little Letter.  I am very glad to learn that you are
so cheerful and well, entering the winter under such favourable omens.  I
lingered in Scotland, latterly against my will, for about six weeks: the
scenes there never can cease to be impressive to me; indeed as natural in
late visits they are far too impressive, and I have to wander there like
a solitary ghost among the graves of those that are gone from me, sad,
sad, and I always think while there, ought not this visit to be the last?

But surely I am well pleased with your kind affection for the Land,
especially for Edinburgh and the scenes about it.  By all means go again
to Edinburgh (tho' the old city is so shorn of its old grim beauty and is
become a place of Highland shawls and railway shriekeries); worship
Scott, withal, as vastly superior to the common run of authors, and
indeed grown now an affectingly _tragic_ man.  Don't forget Burns either
and Ayrshire and the West next time you go; there are admirable
antiquities and sceneries in those parts, leading back (Whithorn for
example, _Whitterne_ or _candida casa_) to the days of St. Cuthbert; not
to speak of Dumfries with Sweetheart Abbey and the brooks and hills a
certain friend of yours first opened his eyes to in this astonishing
world.

I am what is called very well here after my return, worn weak as a
cobweb, but without bodily ailment except the yearly increasing inability
to digest food; my mind, too, if usually mournful instead of joyful, is
seldom or never to be called miserable, and the steady gazing into the
great unknown, which is near and comes nearer every day, ought to furnish
abundant employment to the serious soul.  I read, too; that is my
happiest state, when I can get _good books_, which indeed I more and more
rarely can.

Like yourself I have gone through _Spedding_, seven long long volumes,
not skipping except where I had got the sense with me, and generally
reading all of Bacon's own that was there: I confess to you I found it a
most creditable and even surprising Book, offering the most perfect and
complete image both of Bacon and of Spedding, and distinguished as the
hugest and faithfullest bit of literary navvy work I have ever met with
in this generation.  Bacon is washed clean down to the natural skin; and
truly he is not nor ever was unlovely to me; a man of no culpability to
speak of; of an opulent and even magnificent intellect, but all in the
magnificent prose vein.  Nothing or almost nothing of the 'melodies
eternal' to be traced in him.  Spedding's Book will last as long as there
is any earnest memory held of Bacon, or of the age of James VI., upon
whom as upon every stirring man in his epoch Spedding has shed new
veritable illumination; in almost the whole of which I perfectly
coincided with Spedding.  In effect I walked up to the worthy man's
house, whom I see but little, to tell him all this; and that being a
miss, I drove up, Spedding having by request called here and missed me,
but hitherto we have not met; and Spedding I doubt not could contrive to
dispense with my eulogy.  There is a grim strength in Spedding, quietly,
very quietly invincible, which I did not quite know of till this Book;
and in all ways I could congratulate the indefatigably patient, placidly
invincible and victorious Spedding.

Adieu, dear F.  I wish you a right quiet and healthy winter, and beg to
be kept in memory as now probably your oldest friend.

Ever faithfully yours, dear F.,
T. CARLYLE.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

[9 _Nov._ 1874.]

MY DEAR MASTER,

I think there can be no criminal breach of Confidence in your taking a
Copy, if you will, of C[arlyle]'s Letter.  Indeed, you are welcome to
keep it:--there was but one Person else I wished to show it to, and she
(a _She_) can do very well without it.  I sent it to you directly I got
it, because I thought you would be as pleased as I was with C.'s encomium
on Spedding, which will console him (if he needs Consolation) for the
obduracy of the World at large, myself among the number.  I can indeed
fully assent to Carlyle's Admiration of Spedding's History of the
_Times_, as well as of the Hero who lived in them.  But the Question
still remains--was it worth forty years of such a Life as Spedding's to
write even so good an Account of a few, not the most critical, Years of
English History, and to leave Bacon (I think) a little less well off than
when S. began washing him: I mean in the eyes of candid and sensible men,
who simply supposed before that Bacon was no better than the Men of his
Time, and now J. S. has proved it.  I have no doubt that Carlyle takes up
the Cudgels because he thinks the World is now going the other way.  If
Spedding's Book had been praised by the Critics--Oh Lord!

But what a fine vigorous Letter from the old Man!  When I was walking my
Garden yesterday at about 11 a.m. I thought to myself 'the Master will
have had this Letter at Breakfast; and a thought of it will cross him
tandis que le Predicateur de Ste Marie soit en plein Discours, etc.' . . .

If Lord Houghton be with you pray thank him for the first _ebauche_ of
Hyperion he sent me.  Surely no one can doubt which was the first Sketch.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Jan._ 18/75.

DEAR MISS BIDDELL,

I am sending you a Treat.  The old Athenaeum told me there was a Paper by
'Mr. Carlyle' in this month's Magazine; and never did I lay out half-a-
crown better.  And you shall have the Benefit of it, if you will.  Why,
Carlyle's Wine, so far from weak evaporation, is only grown better by
Age: losing some of its former fierceness, and grown mellow without
losing Strength.  It seems to me that a Child might read and relish this
Paper, while it would puzzle any other Man to write such a one.  I think
I must write to T. C. to felicitate him on this truly 'Green Old Age.'
Oh, it was good too to read it here, with the old Sea (which also has not
sunk into Decrepitude) rolling in from that North: and as I looked up
from the Book, there was a Norwegian Barque beating Southward, close to
the Shore, and nearly all Sail set.  Read--Read! you will, you must, be
pleased; and write to tell me so.

This Place suits me, I think, at this time of year: there is Life about
me: and that old Sea is always talking to one, telling its ancient Story.

LOWESTOFT.  _Febr._ 2/75.

DEAR MISS BIDDELL,

I am _so_ glad (as the Gushingtons say) that you like the Carlyle.  I
have ordered the second Number and will send it to you when I have read
it.  Some People, I believe, hesitate in their Belief of its being T. C.
or one of his School: I don't for a moment: if for no other reason than
that an Imitator always exaggerates his Model: whereas this Paper, we
see, _un_exaggerates the Master himself: as one would wish at his time of
Life. . . .

I ran over for one day to Woodbridge, to pay Bills, etc.  But somehow I
was glad to get back here.  The little lodging is more to my liking than
my own bigger rooms and staircases: and this cheerful Town better (at
this Season) than my yet barren Garden.  One little Aconite however
looked up at me: Mr. Churchyard (in his elegant way) used to call them
'New Year's Gifts.'

_To E. B. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Feb._ 2/75.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I hope you have read, and liked, the Paper on the old Kings of
Norway in last Fraser.  I bought it because the Athenaeum told me it was
Carlyle's; others said it was an Imitation of him: but his it must be, if
for no other reason than that the Imitator, you know, always exaggerates
his Master: whereas in this Paper Carlyle is softened down from his old
Self, mellowed like old Wine.  Pray read, and tell me you think so too.
It is quite delightful, whoever did it.  I was on the point of writing a
Line to tell him of my own delight: but have not done so. . . .

I have failed in another attempt at Gil Blas.  I believe I see its easy
Grace, humour, etc.  But it is (like La Fontaine) too thin a Wine for me:
all sparkling with little adventures, but no one to care about; no
Colour, no Breadth, like my dear Don; whom I shall resort to forthwith.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

LOWESTOFT, _Sept._ 22, [1878].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

You will scarce thank me for a letter in pencil: perhaps you would thank
me less if I used the steel pen, which is my other resource.  You could
very well dispense with a Letter altogether: and yet I believe it is
pleasant to get one when abroad.

I dare say I may have told you what Tennyson said of the Sistine Child,
which he then knew only by Engraving.  He first thought the Expression of
his Face (as also the Attitude) almost too solemn, even for the Christ
within.  But some time after, when A. T. was married, and had a Son, he
told me that Raffaelle was all right: that no Man's face was so solemn as
a Child's, full of Wonder.  He said one morning that he watched his Babe
'worshipping the Sunbeam on the Bedpost and Curtain.'  I risk telling you
this again for the sake of the Holy Ground you are now standing on.

Which reminds me also of a remark of Beranger's not out of place.  He
says God forgot to give Raffaelle to Greece, and made a 'joli cadeau' of
him to the Church of Rome.

I brought here some Volumes of Lever's 'Cornelius O'Dowd' Essays, very
much better reading than Addison, I think.  Also some of Sainte Beuve's
better than either.  A sentence in O'Dowd reminded me of your Distrust of
Civil Service Examinations: 'You could not find a worse Pointer than the
Poodle which would pick you out all the letters of the Alphabet.'  And is
not this pretty good of the World we live in?  'You ask me if I am going
to "_The Masquerade_."  I am at it: Circumspice!'

So I pick out and point to other Men's Game, this Sunday Morning, when
the Sun makes the Sea shine, and a strong head wind drives the Ships with
shortened Sail across it.  Last night I was with some Sailors at the Inn:
some one came in who said there was a Schooner with five feet water in
her in the Roads: and off they went to see if anything beside water could
be got out of her.  But, as you say, one mustn't be epigrammatic and
clever.  Just before Grog and Pipe, the Band had played some German
Waltzes, a bit of Verdi, Rossini's 'Cujus animam,' and a capital Sailors'
Tramp-chorus from Wagner, all delightful to me, on the Pier: how much
better than all the dreary oratorios going on all the week at Norwich;
Elijah, St. Peter, St. Paul, Eli, etc.  There will be an Oratorio for
every Saint and Prophet; which reminds me of my last Story.  Voltaire had
an especial grudge against Habakkuk.  Some one proved to him that he had
misrepresented facts in Habakkuk's history.  'C'est egal,' says V.,
'Habakkuk etait capable de tout.'  Cornewall Lewis, who (like most other
Whigs) had no Humour, yet tells this: I wonder if it will reach Dresden.

_To Mrs. W. H. Thompson_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Sept._ 23, [1875].

DEAR MRS. THOMPSON,

It is very good of you to write to me, so many others as, I know, you
must have to write to.  I can tell you but little in return for the Story
of your Summer Travel: but what little I have to say shall be said at
once.  As to Travel, I have got no further than Norfolk, and am rather
sorry I did not go further North, to the Scottish Border, at any rate.
But now it is too late.  I have contented myself with my Boat on the
River here: with my Garden, Pigeons, Ducks, etc.; a great Philosopher
indeed!  But (to make an end of oneself) I have not been well all the
summer; unsteady in head and feet; the Beginning of the End, I suppose;
and if the End won't be too long spinning out, one cannot complain of its
coming too soon. . . .

I had a kindly Letter from Carlyle some days ago: he was summering at
some place near Bromley in Kent, lent him by a Lady Derby; once, he says,
Lady Salisbury, which I don't understand.  He had also the use of a
Phaeton and Pony; which latter he calls '_Shenstone_' from a partiality
to stopping at every Inn door.  Carlyle had been a little touched in
revisiting Eltham, and remembering Frank Edgeworth who resided there
forty years ago 'with a little Spanish Wife, but no pupils.'  Carlyle
would name him with a sort of sneer in the Life of Sterling; {184} could
not see that any such notice was more than needless, just after
Edgeworth's Death.  This is all a little Scotch indelicacy to other
people's feelings.  But now Time and his own Mortality soften him.  I
have been looking over his Letters to me about Cromwell: the amazing
perseverance and accuracy of the Man, who writes so passionately!  In a
letter of about 1845 or 6 he says he has burned at least six attempts at
Cromwell's Life: and finally falls back on sorting and elucidating the
Letters, as a sure Groundwork. . . .

I have this Summer made the Acquaintance of a great Lady, with whom I
have become perfectly intimate, through her Letters, Madame de Sevigne.  I
had hitherto kept aloof from her, because of that eternal Daughter of
hers; but 'it's all Truth and Daylight,' as Kitty Clive said of Mrs.
Siddons.  Her Letters from Brittany are best of all, not those from
Paris, for she loved the Country, dear Creature; and now I want to go and
visit her 'Rochers,' but never shall.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

[1875.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I told Elizabeth, I think, all I had to write about Arthur C.  I
had a letter from him a few days ago, hoping to see me in London, where I
thought I might be going about this time, and where I would not go
without giving him notice to meet me, poor lad.  As yet however I cannot
screw my Courage to go up: I have no Curiosity about what is to be seen
or heard there; my Day is done.  I have not been very well all this
Summer, and fancy that I begin to 'smell the Ground,' as Sailors say of
the Ship that slackens speed as the Water shallows under her.  I can't
say I have much care for long Life: but still less for long Death: I mean
a lingering one.

Did you ever read Madame de Sevigne?  I never did till this summer,
rather repelled by her perpetual harping on her Daughter.  But it is all
genuine, and the same intense Feeling expressed in a hundred natural yet
graceful ways: and beside all this such good Sense, good Feeling, Humour,
Love of Books and Country Life, as makes her certainly the Queen of all
Letter writers.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE, SUFFOLK.
(_Post Mark Dec._ 8.)  _Dec._ 9/75.

MY DEAR SIR,

Mr. Carlyle's Niece has sent me a Card from you, asking for a Copy of an
Agamemnon: taken--I must not say, translated--from AEschylus.  It was not
meant for Greek Scholars, like yourself, but for those who do not know
the original, which it very much misrepresents.  I think it is my friend
Mrs. Kemble who has made it a little known on your wide Continent.  As
you have taken the trouble to enquire for it all across the Atlantic,
beside giving me reason before to confide in your friendly reception of
it, I post you one along with this letter.  I can fancy you might find
some to be interested in it who do not know the original: more interested
than in more faithful Translations of more ability.  But there I will
leave it: only begging that you will not make any trouble of
acknowledging so small a Gift.

Some eighty of Carlyle's Friends and Admirers have been presenting him
with a Gold Medal of himself, and an Address of Congratulation on his
80th Birthday.  I should not have supposed that either Medal or Address
would be much to his Taste: but, as more important People than myself
joined in the Thing, I did not think it became me to demur.  But I shall
not the less write him my half-yearly Letter of Good Hopes and Good
Wishes.  He seems to have been well and happy in our pretty County of
Kent during the Summer.

Believe me, with Thanks for the Interest you have taken in my _Libretti_,
yours sincerely, E. FITZGERALD.

P.S.  I am doing an odd thing in bethinking me of sending you two
Calderon Plays, which my friend Mrs. Kemble has spoken of also in your
Country.  So you might one day hear of them: and, if you liked what came
before, wish to see them.  So here they are, for better or worse; and, at
any rate, one Note of Thanks (which I doubt you will feel bound to write)
will do for both, and you can read as little as you please of either.  All
these things have been done partly as an amusement in a lonely life:
partly to give some sort of idea of the originals to friends who knew
them not: and printed, because (like many others, I suppose) I can only
dress my best when seeing myself in Type, in the same way as I can scarce
read others unless in such a form.  I suppose there was some Vanity in it
all: but really, if I had that strong, I might have done (considering
what little I can do) like Crabbe's Bachelor--

   I might have made a Book, but that my Pride
   In the not making was more gratified. {187}

Do you read more of Crabbe than we his Countrymen?

_To Miss Aitken_. {188a}

WOODBRIDGE.  _Dec._ 9/75.

DEAR MISS AITKEN,

It is a fact that the night before last I thought I would write my half-
yearly Enquiry about your Uncle: and at Noon came your Note.  I judge
from it that he is well.  I think he will thrash me (as Bentley said
{188b}) even now.

I must say I scarce knew what to do when asked to join in that Birthday
Address.  I did not know whether it would be agreeable to your Uncle: and
of course I could not ask him.  So I asked Spedding and Pollock, and
found they were of the Party: so it did not become me to hesitate.  I
hope we were not all amiss.

But as to Agamemnon the King: I shall certainly send Mr. Norton a Copy,
as he has taken the trouble to send across the Atlantic for it.  But as
to Mr. Carlyle, 'c'est une autre affaire.'  It was not meant for any
Greek Scholar, and only for a few not Greek, who I thought would be
interested, as they have been, in my curious Version.  Among these was
Mrs. Kemble, who I suppose it is has praised it in a way that somehow
gains ground in America.  But your Uncle--a few years ago he would have
been perhaps a little irritated with it; and now would not, I feel sure,
care to spend his Eyes over its sixty or seventy pages.  He would even
now think--but in Pity now--how much better one might have spent one's
time (though not very much was spent) than in such Dilettanteism.  So
tell him not quite to break his heart if I don't put him to the Trial:
but still believe me his, and, if you will allow me, yours sincerely,

E. FITZGERALD.

_Fragment of a Letter to Miss Biddell_.

_Dec._ 1875.

Thank you for the paragraph about Shelley.  Somehow I don't believe the
Story, {189} in spite of Trelawney's Authority.  Let them produce the
Confessor who is reported to tell the Story; otherwise one does not need
any more than such a Squall as we have late had in these Seas, and yet
more sudden, I believe, in those, to account for the Disaster.

I believe I told you that my Captain Newson and his Nephew, my trusty
Jack, went in the Snow to the Norfolk Coast, by Cromer, to find Newson's
Boy.  They found him, what remained of him, in a Barn there: brought him
home through the Snow by Rail thus far: and through the Snow by Boat to
Felixstow, where he is to lie among his Brothers and Sisters, to the
Peace of his Father's Heart.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Dec._ 30/75.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . I cannot get on with Books about the Daily Life which I find rather
insufferable in practice about me.  I never could read Miss Austen, nor
(later) the famous George Eliot.  Give me People, Places, and Things,
which I don't and can't see; Antiquaries, Jeanie Deans, Dalgettys, etc. . . .
As to Thackeray's, they are terrible; I really look at them on the
shelf, and am half afraid to touch them.  He, you know, could go deeper
into the Springs of Common Action than these Ladies: wonderful he is, but
not Delightful, which one thirsts for as one gets old and dry.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.  _Jan._ 23/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

. . . I suppose you may see one of the Carlyle Medallions: and you can
judge better of the Likeness than I, who have not been to Chelsea, and
hardly out of Suffolk, these fifteen years and more.  I dare say it is
like him: but his Profile is not his best phase.  In two notes dictated
by him since that Business he has not adverted to it: I think he must be
a little ashamed of it, though it would not do to say so in return, I
suppose.  And yet I think he might have declined the Honours of a Life of
'Heroism.'  I have no doubt he would have played a Brave Man's Part if
called on; but, meanwhile, he has only sat pretty comfortably at Chelsea,
scolding all the world for not being Heroic, and not always very precise
in telling them how.  He has, however, been so far heroic, as to be
always independent, whether of Wealth, Rank, and Coteries of all sorts:
nay, apt to fly in the face of some who courted him.  I suppose he is
changed, or subdued, at eighty: but up to the last ten years he seemed to
me just the same as when I first knew him five and thirty years ago.  What
a Fortune he might have made by showing himself about as a Lecturer, as
Thackeray and Dickens did; I don't mean they did it for Vanity: but to
make money: and that to spend generously.  Carlyle did indeed lecture
near forty years ago before he was a Lion to be shown, and when he had
but few Readers.  I heard his 'Heroes' which now seems to me one of his
best Books.  He looked very handsome then, with his black hair, fine
Eyes, and a sort of crucified Expression.

I know of course (in Books) several of those you name in your Letter:
Longfellow, whom I may say I love, and so (I see) can't call him
_Mister_: and Emerson whom I admire, for I don't feel that I know the
Philosopher so well as the Poet: and Mr. Lowell's 'Among my Books' is
among mine.  I also have always much liked, I think rather loved, O. W.
Holmes.  I scarce know why I could never take to that man of true Genius,
Hawthorne.  There is a little of my Confession of Faith about your
Countrymen, and I should say mine, if I were not more Irish than English.

[WOODBRIDGE.  _Feb._ 7/76.]

MY DEAR SIR,

I will not look on the Book you have sent me as any Return for the
Booklet I sent you, but as a free and kindly Gift.  I really don't know
that you could have sent me a better.  I have read it with more
continuous attention and gratification than I now usually feel, and
always (as Lamb suggested) well disposed to say Grace after reading.

Seeing what Mr. Lowell has done for Dante, Rousseau, etc., one does not
wish him to be limited in his Subjects: but I do wish he would do for
English Writers what Ste. Beuve has done for French.  Mr. Lowell so far
goes along with him as to give so much of each Writer's Life as may
illustrate his Writings; he has more Humour (in which alone I fancy S. B.
somewhat wanting), more extensive Reading, I suppose; and a power of
metaphorical Illustration which (if I may say so) seems to me to want
only a little reserve in its use: as was the case perhaps with Hazlitt.
But Mr. Lowell is not biassed by Hazlitt's--(by anybody's, so far as I
see)--party or personal prejudices; and altogether seems to me the man
most fitted to do this Good Work, where it has not (as with Carlyle's
Johnson) been done, for good and all, before.  Of course, one only wants
the Great Men, in their kind: Chaucer, Pope (Dryden being done {193}),
and perhaps some of the 'minora sidera' clustered together, as Hazlitt
has done them.  Perhaps all this will come forth in some future Series
even now gathering in Mr. Lowell's Head.  However that may be, this
present Series will make me return to some whom I have not lately looked
up.  Dante's face I have not seen these ten years: only his Back on my
Book Shelf.  What Mr. Lowell says of him recalled to me what Tennyson
said to me some thirty-five or forty years ago.  We were stopping before
a shop in Regent Street where were two Figures of Dante and Goethe.  I (I
suppose) said, 'What is there in old Dante's Face that is missing in
Goethe's?'  And Tennyson (whose Profile then had certainly a remarkable
likeness to Dante's) said: 'The Divine.'  Then Milton; I don't think I've
read him these forty years; the whole Scheme of the Poem, and certain
Parts of it, looming as grand as anything in my Memory; but I never could
read ten lines together without stumbling at some Pedantry that tipped me
at once out of Paradise, or even Hell, into the Schoolroom, worse than
either.  Tennyson again used to say that the two grandest of all Similes
were those of the Ships hanging in the Air, and 'the Gunpowder one,'
which he used slowly and grimly to enact, in the Days that are no more.
He certainly then thought Milton the sublimest of all the Gang; his
Diction modelled on Virgil, as perhaps Dante's.

Spenser I never could get on with, and (spite of Mr. Lowell's good word)
shall still content myself with such delightful Quotations from him as
one lights upon here and there: the last from Mr. Lowell.

Then, old 'Daddy Wordsworth,' as he was sometimes called, I am afraid,
from my Christening, he is now, I suppose, passing under the Eclipse
consequent on the Glory which followed his obscure Rise.  I remember
fifty years ago at our Cambridge, when the Battle was fighting for him by
the Few against the Many of us who only laughed at 'Louisa in the Shade,'
etc.  His Brother was then Master of Trinity College; like all
Wordsworths (unless the drowned Sailor) pompous and priggish.  He used to
drawl out the Chapel responses so that we called him the 'Meeserable
Sinner' and his brother the 'Meeserable Poet.'  Poor fun enough: but I
never can forgive the Lakers all who first despised, and then patronized
'Walter Scott,' as they loftily called him: and He, dear, noble, Fellow,
thought they were quite justified.  Well, your Emerson has done him far
more Justice than his own Countryman Carlyle, who won't allow him to be a
Hero in any way, but sets up such a cantankerous narrow-minded Bigot as
John Knox in his stead.  I did go to worship at Abbotsford, as to
Stratford on Avon: and saw that it was good to have so done.  If you, if
Mr. Lowell, have not lately read it, pray read Lockhart's account of his
Journey to Douglas Dale on (I think) July 18 or 19, 1831.  It is a piece
of Tragedy, even to the muttering Thunder, like the Lammermuir, which
does not look very small beside Peter Bell and Co.

My dear Sir, this is a desperate Letter; and that last Sentence will lead
to another dirty little Story about my Daddy: to which you must listen or
I should feel like the Fine Lady in one of Vanbrugh's Plays, 'Oh my God,
that you won't listen to a Woman of Quality when her Heart is bursting
with Malice!'  And perhaps you on the other Side of the Great Water may
be amused with a little of your old Granny's Gossip.

Well then: about 1826, or 7, Professor Airy (now our Astronomer Royal)
and his Brother William called on the Daddy at Rydal.  In the course of
Conversation Daddy mentioned that sometimes when genteel Parties came to
visit him, he contrived to slip out of the room, and down the garden walk
to where 'The Party's' travelling Carriage stood.  This Carriage he would
look into to see what Books they carried with them: and he observed it
was generally 'WALTER SCOTT'S.'  It was Airy's Brother (a very veracious
man, and an Admirer of Wordsworth, but, to be sure, more of Sir Walter)
who told me this.  It is this conceit that diminishes Wordsworth's
stature among us, in spite of the mountain Mists he lived among.  Also, a
little stinginess; not like Sir Walter in that!  I remember Hartley
Coleridge telling us at Ambleside how Professor Wilson and some one else
(H. C. himself perhaps) stole a Leg of Mutton from Wordsworth's Larder
for the fun of the Thing.

Here then is a long Letter of old world Gossip from the old Home.  I hope
it won't tire you out: it need not, you know.

P.S.  By way of something better from the old World, I post you Hazlitt's
own Copy of his English Poets, with a few of his marks for another
Edition in it.  If you like to keep it, pray do: if you like better to
give it to Hazlitt's successor, Mr. Lowell, do that from yourself.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_April_ 8/76.

. . . If you go to Brittany you must go to my dear Sevigne's 'Rochers.'
If I had the 'Go' in me, I should get there this Summer too: as to
Abbotsford and Stratford.  She has been my Companion here; quite alive in
the Room with me.  I sometimes lament I did not know her before: but
perhaps such an Acquaintance comes in best to cheer one toward the End.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 10 {196}, [1876].

MY DEAR SIR,

I don't know that I should trouble you so soon again--(only, don't
trouble yourself to answer for form's sake only)--but that there is a
good deal of Wordsworth in the late Memoir of Haydon by his Son.  All
this you might like to see; as also Mr. Lowell.  And do you, or he, know
of some dozen very good Letters of Wordsworth's addressed to a Mr.
Gillies who published them in what he calls the Life of a Literary
Veteran some thirty years ago, {197} I think?  This Book, of scarce any
value except for those few Letters, and a few Notices of Sir Walter
Scott, all good, is now not very common, I think.  If you or Mr. Lowell
would like to have a Copy, I can send you one, through Quaritch, if not
per Post: I have the Letters separately bound up from another Copy of
long ago.  There is also a favorable account of a meeting between
Wordsworth and Foscolo in an otherwise rather valueless Memoir of Bewick
the Painter.  I tell you of all this Wordsworth, because you have, I
think, a more religious regard for him than we on this side the water: he
is not so much honoured in his own Country, I mean, his Poetry.  I, for
one, feel all his lofty aspiration, and occasional Inspiration, but I
cannot say that, on the whole, he makes much of it; his little pastoral
pieces seem to me his best: less than a Quarter of him.  But I may be
wrong.

I am very much obliged to you for wishing me to see Mr. Ticknor's Life,
etc.  I hope to make sure of that through our Briareus-handed Mudie; and
have marked the Book for my next Order.  For I suppose that it finds its
way to English Publishers, or Librarians.  I remember his Spanish
Literature coming out, and being for a long time in the hands of my
friend Professor Cowell, who taught me what I know of Spanish.  Only a
week ago I began my dear Don Quixote over again; as welcome and fresh as
the Flowers of May.  The Second Part is my favorite, in spite of what
Lamb and Coleridge (I think) say; when, as old Hallam says, Cervantes has
fallen in Love with the Hero whom he began by ridiculing.  When this
Letter is done I shall get out into my Garden with him, Sunday though it
be.

We have also Memoirs of Godwin, very dry, I think; indeed with very
little worth reading, except two or three Letters of dear Charles Lamb,
'Saint Charles,' as Thackeray once called him, while looking at one of
his half-mad Letters, and remember[ing] his Devotion to that quite mad
Sister.  I must say I think his Letters infinitely better than his
Essays; and Patmore says his Conversation, when just enough animated by
Gin and Water, was better than either: which I believe too.  Procter said
he was far beyond the Coleridges, Wordsworths, Southeys, etc.  And I am
afraid I believe that also.

I am afraid too this is a long letter nearly [all] about my own Likes and
Dislikes.  'The Great Twalmley's.' {198}  But I began only thinking about
Wordsworth.  Pray do believe that I do not wish you to write unless you
care to answer on that score.  And now for the Garden and the Don: always
in a common old Spanish Edition.  Their coarse prints always make him
look more of the Gentleman than the better Artists of other Countries
have hitherto done.

Carlyle, I hear, is pretty well, though somewhat shrunk: scolding away at
Darwin, The Turk, etc.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE,
_Septr._ 10/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

When your Letter reached me a few days ago I looked up Gillies: and found
the Wordsworth Letters so good, kindly, sincere, and modest, that I
thought you and Mr. Lowell should have the Volume they are in at once.  So
it travels by Post along with this Letter.  The other two volumes shall
go one day in some parcel of Quaritch's if he will do me that Courtesy;
but there is, I think, little you would care for, unless a little more of
'Walter Scott's' generosity and kindness to Gillies in the midst of his
own Ruin; a stretch of Goodness that Wordsworth would not, I think, have
reached.  However, these Letters of his make me think I ought to feel
more filially to my Daddy: I must dip myself again in Mr. Lowell's
excellent Account of him with a more reverent Spirit.  Do you remember
the fine Picture that Haydon gives of him sitting with his grey head in
the free Benches of some London Church? {199}  I wonder that more of such
Letters as these to Gillies are not preserved or produced; perhaps Mr.
Lowell will make use of them on some future occasion; some new Edition,
perhaps, of his last volume.  I can assure you and him that I read that
volume with that Interest and Pleasure that made me sure I should often
return to it: as indeed I did more than once till--lent out to three
several Friends!  It is now in the hands of a very civilized,
well-lettered, and agreeable Archdeacon, {200} of this District.

I bought Mr. Ticknor's Memoirs in an Edition published, I hope with due
Licence, by Sampson Low.  What a just, sincere, kindly, modest Man he
too!  With more shrewd perception of the many fine folks he mixed with
than he cared to indulge in or set down on Paper, I fancy: judging from
some sketchy touches of Macaulay, Talfourd, Bulwer, etc.  His account of
his Lord Fitzwilliam's is surely very creditable to English Nobility.
Macaulay's Memoirs were less interesting to me; though I quite believe in
him as a brave, honest, affectionate man, as well (of course) as a very
powerful one.  It is wonderful how he, Hallam and Mackintosh could roar
and bawl at one another over such Questions as Which is the Greatest
Poet?  Which is the greatest Work of that Greatest Poet? etc., like Boys
at some Debating Society.

You can imagine the little dull Country town on whose Border I live; our
one merit is an Estuary that brings up Tidings of the Sea twice in the
twenty-four hours, and on which I sail in my Boat whenever I can.

I must add a P.S. to say that having written my half-yearly Letter to
Carlyle, just to ask how he was, etc., I hear from his Niece that he has
been to his own Dumfries, has driven a great deal about the Country: but
has returned to Chelsea very weak, she says, though not in any way ill.
He has even ceased to care about Books; but, since his Return, has begun
to interest himself in them a little again.  In short, his own Chelsea is
the best Place for him.

Another reason for this other half Sheet is--that--Yes! I wish very much
for your Translation of the Vita Nuova, which I did read in a slovenly
(slovenly with Dante!) way twenty or thirty years ago, but which I did
not at all understand.  I should know much more about it now with you and
Mr. Lowell.

I could without 'roaring' persuade you about Don Quixote, I think; if I
were to roar over the Atlantic as to 'Which is the best of the Two Parts'
in the style of Macaulay & Co.  'Oh for a Pot of Ale, etc.,' rather than
such Alarums.  Better dull Woodbridge!  What bothered me in London
was--all the Clever People going wrong with such clever Reasons for so
doing which I couldn't confute.  I will send an original Omar if I find
one.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _October_ 5/76.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I bought Clemencin's Quixote after all: but have looked little into
him as yet, as I had finished my last Reading of the Don before he came . . .
I fear his Notes are more than one wants about errors, or
inaccuracies of Style, etc.  Cervantes had some of the noble carelessness
of Shakespeare, Scott, etc., as about Sancho's stolen Dicky. {202}  But
why should Clemencin, and his Predecessors, decide that Cervantes changed
the title of his second Part from 'Hidalgo' to 'Caballero' from
negligence?  Why should he not have intended the change for reasons of
his own?  Anyhow, they should have printed the Title as he printed it,
and pointed out what they thought the oversight in a Note.  This makes
one think they may have altered other things also: which perhaps I shall
see when I begin another Reading: which (if I live) won't be very far
off.  I think I almost inspired Alfred Tennyson (who suddenly came here a
Fortnight ago) to begin on the Spanish.  Yes: A. T. called one day, after
near twenty years' separation, and we were in a moment as if we had been
together all that while.  He had his son Hallam with him: whom I liked
much: unaffected and unpretentious: so attentive to his Father, with a
humorous sense of his Character as well as a loving and respectful.  It
was good to see them together.  We went one day down the Orwell and back
again by Steamer: but the weather was not very propitious.  Altogether, I
think we were all pleased with our meeting.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Novr._ 8/76.

MY DEAR SIR,

'Vita Nuova' reached me safe, and 'siempre verde,' untarnished by its
Voyage.  I am afraid I liked your account of it more than itself: I mean,
I was more interested: I suppose it is too mystical for me.  So I felt
when I tried to read it in the original twenty years ago: and I fear I
must despair of relishing it as I ought now I have your Version of it,
which, it seems to me, must be so good.  I don't think you needed to
bring in Rossetti, still less Theodore Martin, to bear Witness, or to put
your Work in any other Light than its own.

After once more going through my Don Quixote ('siempre verde' too, if
ever Book was), I returned to another of the Evergreens, Boccaccio, which
I found by a Pencil mark at the Volume's end I had last read on board the
little Ship I then had, nine years ago.  And I have shut out the accursed
'Eastern Question' by reading the Stories, as the 'lieta Brigata' shut
out the Plague by telling them.  Perhaps Mr. Lowell will give us
Boccaccio one day, and Cervantes?  And many more, whom Ste. Beuve has
left to be done by him.  I fancy Boccaccio must be read in his Italian,
as Cervantes in his Spanish: the Language fitting either 'like a Glove'
as we say.  Boccaccio's Humour in his Country People, Friars, Scolds,
etc., is capital: as well, of course, as the easy Grace and Tenderness of
other Parts.  One thinks that no one who had well read him and Don
Quixote would ever write with a strain again, as is the curse of nearly
all modern Literature.  I know that 'Easy Writing is d---d hard Reading.'
Of course the Man must be a Man of Genius to take his Ease: but, if he
be, let him take it.  I suppose that such as Dante, and Milton, and my
Daddy, took it far from easy: well, they dwell apart in the Empyrean; but
for Human Delight, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Boccaccio, and Scott!

Tennyson (a Man of Genius, who, I think, has crippled his growth by over-
elaboration) came suddenly upon me here six weeks ago: and, many years as
it was since we had met, there seemed not a Day's Interval between.  He
looked very well; and very happy; having with him his eldest Son, a very
nice Fellow, who took all care of 'Papa,' as I was glad to hear him say,
not 'Governor' as the Phrase now is.  One Evening he was in a Stew
because of some nasty Paragraph in a Newspaper about his not allowing Mr.
Longfellow to quote from his Poems.  And he wrote a Note to Mr. L. at
once in this room, and his Son carried it off to the Post that same
Night, just in time.  So my House is so far become a Palace, being the
Place of a Despatch from one Poet to the other, all over that Atlantic!

We never had the trees in Leaf so long as this Year: they are only just
rusty before my window, this Nov. 8.  So I thought they would die of mere
Old Age: but last night came a Frost, which will hasten their End.  I
suppose yours have been dying in all their Glory as usual.

You must understand that this Letter is to acknowledge the Vita Nuova
(which, by the by, I think ought to be the Title on the Title page as
well as outside), so do not feel obliged to reply, but believe me yours
truly,

E. F. G.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

WOODBRIDGE.
_Saturday_, _Nov._ 76.

. . . You spoke once of even trying Walpole's Letters; capital as they
are to me, I can't be sure they would much interest, even if they did not
rather disgust, you: the Man and his Times are such as you might not care
for at all, though there are such men as his, and such Times too, in the
world about us now.  If you will have the Book on your return home, I
will send you a three-volume Collection of his Letters: that is, not a
Third part of all his collected Letters: but perhaps the best part, and
quite enough for a Beginning.  I can scarce imagine better Christmas
fare: but I can't, I say, guess how you would relish it.  N.B.  It is not
gross or coarse: but you would not like the man, so satirical, selfish,
and frivolous, you would think.  But I think I could show you that he had
a very loving Heart for a few, and a very firm, just, understanding under
all his Wit and Fun.  Even Carlyle has admitted that he was about the
clearest-sighted Man of his time.

_To John Allen_.

LOWESTOFT.  _Decr._ 9/76.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

It was stupid of me not to tell you that I did not want Contemporary
back.  It had been sent me by Tennyson or his son Hallam (for I can't
distinguish their MS. now), that I might see that A. S. Battle fragment:
{206} which is remarkable in its way, I doubt not.  I see by the Athenaeum
that A. T. is bringing out another Poem--another Drama, I think--as
indeed he hinted to me during his flying visit to Woodbridge.  He should
rest on his Oars, or ship them for good now, I think: and I was audacious
to tell him as much.  But he has so many Worshippers who tell him
otherwise.  I think he might have stopped after 1842, leaving Princesses,
Ardens, Idylls, etc., all unborn; all except The Northern Farmer, which
makes me cry. . . .

I dare say there are many as good, if not better, Arctic accounts than
'Under the Northern Lights,' but it was pleasant as read out to me by the
rather intelligent Lad who now serves me with Eyes for two hours of a
Night at Woodbridge. . . .  I am, you see at old Quarters: but am soon
returning to Woodbridge to make some Christmas Arrangements.  Will Peace
and Good Will be our Song this year?  Pray that it be so.

_To Miss Thackeray_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Decr._ 12, 1876.

DEAR ANNIE THACKERAY,

Messrs. Smith and Elder very politely gave me leave to print, and may be
publish, three Stanzas of your Father's 'Ho, pretty Page,' adapted (under
proper direction) to an old Cambridge Tune, which he and I have sung
together, tho' not to these fine Words, as you may guess.  I asked this
of Messrs. Smith and Elder, because I thought they had the Copyright.  But
I did not mean to publish them unless with your Approval: only to print a
few Copies for friends.  And I will stop even that, if you don't choose.
Please to tell me in half a dozen words as directly as you can.

The Words, you know, are so delightful (stanzas one, two, and the last),
and the old Tune of 'Troll, troll, the bonny brown Bowl' so pretty, and
(with some addition) so appropriate, I think, that I fancied others
beside Friends might like to have them together.  But, if you don't
approve, the whole thing shall be quashed.  Which I ought to have asked
before: but I thought your Publishers' sanction might include yours.
Please, I say, to say Yes or No as soon as you can.

I have been reading the two Series of 'Hours in a Library' with real
delight.  Some of them I had read before in Cornhill, but all together
now: delighted, I say, to find all I can so heartily concur and believe
in put into a shape that I could not have wrought out for myself.  I
think I could have suggested a very little about Crabbe, in whom I am
very much up: and one word about Clarissa. {208}  But God send me many
more Hours in a Library in which I may shut myself up from this accursed
East among other things.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Dec._ 22/76.
[Post mark _Dec._ 21.]

MY DEAR SIR,

. . . In the last Atlantic Monthly was, as you know, an Ode by Mr.
Lowell; lofty in Thought and Expression: too uniformly lofty, I think,
for Ode.  Do you, would Mr. Lowell, agree?  I should not say so, did I
not admire the work very much.  You are very good to speak of sending me
his new Volume: but why should you?  My old Athenaeum will tell me of it
here, and I will be sure to get it.

You see --- has come out with another Heroic Poem!  And the Athenaeum
talks of it as a Great Work, etc., with (it seems to me) the false Gallop
in all the Quotations.  It seems to me strange that ---, ---, and ---,
should go on pouring out Poem after Poem, as if such haste could prosper
with any but First-rate Men: and I suppose they hardly reckon themselves
with the very First.  I feel sure that Gray's Elegy, pieced and patched
together so laboriously, by a Man of almost as little Genius as abundant
Taste, will outlive all these hasty Abortions.  And yet there are plenty
of faults in that Elegy too, resulting from the very Elaboration which
yet makes it live.  So I think.

I have been reading with real satisfaction, and delight, Mr. L. Stephen's
Hours in a Library: only, as I have told his Sister in law, I should have
liked to put in a word or two for Crabbe.  I think I could furnish L. S.
with many Epigrams, of a very subtle sort, from Crabbe: and several
paragraphs, if not pages, of comic humour as light as Moliere.  Both
which L. S. seems to doubt in what he calls 'our excellent Crabbe,' who
was not so 'excellent' (in the goody sense) as L. S. seems to intimate.
But then Crabbe is my Great Gun.  He will outlive ---, --- and Co. in
spite of his Carelessness.  So think I again.

His Son, Vicar of a Parish near here, and very like the Father in face,
was a great Friend of mine.  He detested Poetry (sc. verse), and I
believe had never read his Father through till some twenty years ago when
I lent him the Book.  Yet I used to tell him he threw out sparks now and
then.  As one day when we were talking of some Squires who cut down Trees
(which all magnanimous Men respect and love), my old Vicar cried out 'How
_scan_dalously they misuse the Globe!'  He was a very noble, courageous,
generous Man, and worshipped his Father in his way.  I always thought I
could hear this Son in that fine passage which closes the Tales of the
Hall, when the Elder Brother surprises the Younger by the gift of that
House and Domain which are to keep them close Neighbours for ever.

   Here on that lawn your Boys and Girls shall run,
   And gambol, when the daily task is done;
   From yonder Window shall their Mother view
   The happy tribe, and smile at all they do:
   While you, more gravely hiding your Delight,
   _Shall cry_--'_O_, _childish_!'--_and enjoy the Sight_.

By way of pendant to this, pray read the concluding lines of the long,
ill-told, Story of 'Smugglers and Poachers.'  Or shall I fill up my
Letter with them?  This is a sad Picture to match that sunny one.

   As men may children at their sports behold,
   And smile to see them, tho' unmoved and cold,
   Smile at the recollected Games, and then
   Depart, and mix in the Affairs of men;
   So Rachel looks upon the World, and sees
   It can no longer pain, no longer please:
   But just detain the passing Thought; just cause
   A little smile of Pity, or Applause--
   And then the recollected Soul repairs
   Her slumbering Hope, and heeds her own Affairs.

I wish some American Publisher would publish my Edition of Tales of the
Hall, edited by means of Scissors and Paste, with a few words of plain
Prose to bridge over whole tracts of bad Verse; not meaning to improve
the original, but to seduce hasty Readers to study it.

What a Letter, my dear Sir!  But you encourage me to tattle over the
Atlantic by your not feeling bound to answer.  You are a busy man, and I
quite an idle one, but yours sincerely,

E. FITZGERALD.

Carlyle's Niece writes me that he is 'fairly well.'

Ecce iterum!  That mention of Crabbe reminds me of meeting two American
Gentlemen at an Inn in Lichfield, some thirty years ago.  One of them was
unwell, or feeble, and the other tended him very tenderly: and both were
very gentlemanly and well-read.  They had come to see the English
Cathedrals, and spoke together (it was in the common Room) of Places and
Names I knew very well.  So that I took the Liberty of telling them
something of some matters they were speaking of.  Among others, this very
Crabbe: and I told them, if ever they came Suffolk way, I would introduce
them to the Poet's son.  I suppose I gave them my Address: but I had to
go away next morning before they were down: and never heard of them
again.

I sometimes wonder if this eternal Crabbe is relished in America (I am
not looking to my Edition, which would be a hopeless loss anywhere): he
certainly is little read in his own Country.  And I fancy America likes
more abstract matter than Crabbe's homespun.  Excuse AEtat. 68.

Yes, 'Gillies arise! etc.'  But I remember one who used to say he never
got farther with another of the Daddy's Sonnets than--

   Clarkson!  It was an obstinate hill to climb, etc.

English Sonnets, like English Terza Rima, want, I think, the double
rhyme.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Jan._ 15/77.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Then I sent you the Greek instead of the Persian whom you asked for?  The
two are the same size and binding: so of course I sent the wrong one.  But
I will send the right one directly: and you need not make a trouble of
acknowledging it: I know you will thank me, and I think you will feel a
sort of 'triste Plaisir' in it, as others beside myself have felt.  It is
a desperate sort of thing, unfortunately at the bottom of all thinking
men's minds; but made Music of. . . .  I shall soon be going to old ugly
Lowestoft again to be with Nephews and Nieces.  The Great Man . . . is
yet there: commanding a Crew of those who prefer being his Men to having
command of their own.  And they are right; for the man is Royal, tho'
with the faults of ancient Vikings. . . .  His Glory is somewhat marred;
but he looks every inch a King in his Lugger now.  At home (when he is
there, and not at the Tavern) he sits among his Dogs, Cats, Birds, etc.,
always with a great Dog following abroad, and aboard.  This is altogether
the Greatest Man I have known.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _February_ 1/77.

MY DEAR SIR,

I really only write now to prevent your doing so in acknowledgment of
Thackeray's Song {213} which I sent you, and you perhaps knew the
handwriting of the Address.  Pray don't write about such a thing, so soon
after the very kind Letter I have just had from you.  Why I sent you the
Song I can hardly tell, not knowing if you care for Thackeray or Music:
but that must be as it is; only, do not, pray, write expressly about it.

The Song is what it pretends to be: the words speak for themselves; very
beautiful, I think: the Tune is one which Thackeray and I knew at
College, belonging to some rather free Cavalier words,

   Troll, troll, the bonny brown Bowl,

with four bars interpolated to let in the Page.  I have so sung it
(without a Voice) to myself these dozen years, since his Death, and so I
have got the words decently arranged, in case others should like them as
well as myself.  Voila tout!

I thought, after I had written my last, that I ought not to have said
anything of an American Publisher of Crabbe, as it might (as it has done)
set you on thinking how to provide one for me.  I spoke of America,
knowing that no one in England would do such a thing, and not knowing if
Crabbe were more read in your Country than in his own.  Some years ago I
got some one to ask Murray if he would publish a Selection from all
Crabbe's Poems: as has been done of Wordsworth and others.  But Murray
(to whom Crabbe's collected Works have always been a loss) would not
meddle. . . .  You shall one day see my 'Tales of the Hall,' when I can
get it decently arranged, and written out (what is to be written), and
then you shall judge of what chance it has of success.  I want neither
any profit, whether of money, or reputation: I only want to have Crabbe
read more than he is.  Women and young People never will like him, I
think: but I believe every thinking man will like him more as he grows
older; see if this be not so with yourself and your friends.  Your
Mother's Recollection of him is, I am sure, the just one: Crabbe never
showed himself in Company, unless to a very close and experienced
observer: his Company manner was exactly the reverse of his Books:
almost, as Moore says, '_doucereux_'; the apologetic politeness of the
old School over-done, as by one who was not born to it.  But Campbell
observed his 'shrewd Vigilance' awake under all his 'politesse,' and John
Murray said that Crabbe said uncommon things in so common a way that they
escaped recognition.  It appears, I think, that he not only said, but
wrote, such things: even to such Readers as Mr. Stephen; who can see very
little Humour, and no Epigram, in him.  I will engage to find plenty of
both.  I think Mr. Stephen could hardly have read the later Books: viz.,
Tales of the Hall, and the Posthumous Poems: which, though careless and
incomplete, contain Crabbe's most mature Self, I think.  Enough of him
for the present: and altogether enough, unless I wish to become a
'seccatore' by my repeated, long, letters. . . .

Mr. Lowell was good enough to send me his Odes, and I have written to
acknowledge them with many thanks and a few observations, not meant to
instruct such a Man, but just to show that I had read with Attention, as
I did.  I think I had much the same to say of them as I said to you: and
so I won't say it again.  I think it is a mistake to rely on the reading,
or recitation, for an Effect which ought to speak for itself in any
capable Reader's Head.  Tennyson, with the grand Voice he had (I fancy it
is somewhat weakened now) could make sonorous music of such a beginning
to an Ode as

   Bury the Great Duke!

The Thought is simple and massy enough: but where is a Vowel?  Dryden
opened better:

   'Twas at the royal Feast o'er Persia won.

But Mr. Lowell's Odes, which do not fail in the Vowel, are noble in
Thought, with a good Organ roll in the music, which perhaps he thinks
more fitted to Subject and occasion.

_To Mrs. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_March_ 11/77.

. . . I scarce like your taking any pains about my Works, whether in
Verse, Prose, or Music.  I never see any Paper but my old Athenaeum,
which, by the way, now tells me of some Lady's Edition of Omar which is
to discover all my Errors and Perversions.  So this will very likely turn
the little Wind that blew my little Skiff on.  Or the Critic who
incautiously helped that may avenge himself on Agamemnon King, as he
pleases.  If the Pall Mall Critic knew Greek, I am rather surprised he
should have vouchsafed even so much praise as the words you quoted.  But
I certainly have found that those few whom I meant it for, not Greek
scholars, have been more interested in it than I expected.  Not you, I
think, who, though you judge only too favourably of all I do, are not
fond of such Subjects.

I have here two Volumes of my dear Sevigne's Letters lately discovered at
Dijon; and I am writing out for my own use a Dictionary of the Dramatis
Persons figuring in her Correspondence, whom I am always forgetting and
confounding.

* * * * *

In May 1877 his old boatman West died and FitzGerald wrote to Professor
Cowell, 'I have not had heart to go on our river since the death of my
old Companion West, with whom I had traversed reach after reach for these
dozen years.  I am almost as averse to them now as Peter Grimes. {217}  So
now I content myself with the River Side.'

_To W. A. Wright_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 23/77.

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

. . . I have been regaling myself, in my unscholarly way, with Mr.
Munro's admirable Lucretius.  Surely, it must be one of the most
admirable Editions of a Classic ever made!  I don't understand the Latin
punctuation, but I dare say there is good reason for it.  The English
Translation reads very fine to me: I think I should have thought so
independent of the original: all except the dry theoretic System, which I
must say I do all but skip in the Latin.  Yet I venerate the earnestness
of the man, and the power with which he makes some music even from his
hardest Atoms; a very different Didactic from Virgil, whose Georgics,
_quoad_ Georgics, are what every man, woman, and child, must have known;
but, his Teaching apart, no one loves him better than I do.  I forget if
Lucretius is in Dante: he should have been the Guide thro' Hell: but
perhaps he was too deep in it to get out for a Holiday.  That is a very
noble Poussin Landscape, v. 1370-8 'Inque dies magis, etc.'

I had always observed that mournful '_Nequicquam_' which comes to throw
cold water on us after a little glow of Hope.  When Tennyson went with me
to Harwich, I was pointing out an old Collier rolling by to the tune of

   Trudit agens magnam magno molimine navem.  [iv. 902.]

That word '_Magnus_' rules in Lucretius as much as 'Nequicquam.'  I was
rejoiced to meet Tennyson quoted in the notes too, and my old Montaigne
who discourses so on the text of

   Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus.  [i. 36.]

Ask Mr. Munro, when he reprints, to quote old Montaigne's Version of

   Nam verae voces tum demum, etc.  [iii. 57.]

'A ce dernier rolle de la Mort, et de nous, il n'y a plus que feindre, il
faut parler Francais; il faut montrer ce qu'il y a de bon et de net dans
le fond du pot.' {219a}  And tell him (damn my impudence!) I don't like
my old Fathers '_dancing_' under the yellow and ferruginous awnings.
{219b} . . .

There is a coincidence with Bacon in verses 1026-9 of Book II.
(Lucretius, I mean).

_To John Allen_.

MY DEAR ARCHDEACON,

I have little else to send you in reply to your letter (which I believe
however was in reply to one of mine) except the enclosed from Notes and
Queries: which I think you will like to read, and to return to me.

I think I will send you (when I can lay hand on it) two volumes of some
one's Memorials of Wesley's Family: which you can look over, if you do
not read, and return to me also.  I wonder at your writing to me that I
gave you his Journal so long as thirty years ago.  I scarce knew that I
was so constant in my Affections: and yet I think I do _not_ change in
literary cases.  Pray read Southey's Life of him again: it does not tell
all, I think, which might be told of Wesley's own character from his own
Mouth: but then it errs on the right side: it does not presumptuously
guess at Qualities and Motives which are not to be found in Wesley:
unlike Carlyle and the modern Historians, Southey, I think, cannot be
wrong by keeping so much within the bounds of Conjecture: Conjecture
about any other Man's Soul and Motives!

_To FitzEdward Hall_. {220a}

WOODBRIDGE: _June_ 24 [1877].

MY DEAR SIR,

I have run through your _Ability_ {220b} again, since I sent it to
Wright: but as I before said (I believe) am not a competent Critic.  I
know that I coincide (unless I misconstrue) with your Canons laid down at
pp. 162, etc.  I am for all words that are smooth, or strong, (as the
meaning requires) which have proved their worth by general admission into
the Language.  '_Reliable_' is, what '_trustworthy_' is not, good current
coin for general use, though '_trustworthy_' may be good too for
occasional emphasis.

I remember old Hudson Gurney cavilling a little at '_realize_' as I
innocently used the word in a Memoir of my old Bernard Barton near thirty
years ago: this word I have also seen branded as American; let America
furnish us with more such words; better than what our 'old English'
pedants supply, with their '_Fore-word_' for 'Preface,' '_Folk-lore_,'
and other such conglomerate consonants.  Odd, that a Lawyer (Sugden)
should have lubricated '_Hand-book_' by a sort of Persian process into
'Handy-book'!

I remember, years ago, thinking I must rebel against English by using
'_impitiable_' for 'incapable of Pity.'  Yet I suppose that, according to
Alford & Co., I was justified, though 'pitiable' is, I think always used
of the thing pitied, not the Pitier.  But I should defer to customary
usage rather than to any particular whim of my own; only that it happened
to come handy at the time, and I did not, and do not, much care.

But is not usage against your use of '_imitable_' at p. 100, meaning what
_ought not_, not what _cannot_, be imitated?  'Non imitabile fulmen,'
etc., and, negatively, '_inimitable_'?

'_Vengeable_' with its host of Authorities surprised, and gratified, me.

Johnson, you say (p. 34) called '_uncomeatable_' a low corrupt word:
rather, as you well say, 'a permissible colloquialism.'  Yes; like old
Johnson's own '_Clubable_' by which he designated some Good sociable
Fellow.

'_Party_' has good Authority (from Shakespeare himself, as we know), and
is a handy word we ought not to dismiss: better than the d---d
'_Individual_' which should only be used in philosophic or scientific
discrimination.  Still, Crabbe, in his fine Opium-inspired 'World of
Dreams' should not recall his beloved as '_that dear Party_.'

Other adjectives beside those that 'exit in _able_' are cavilled at.
'_Fadeless_'; what is '_a Fade_'?  Why not 'unfading'?  Yet there is a
difference between what has not as yet faded, and what _cannot_ fade.  And
I shall become very '_tiresome_,' though I don't know of any '_tire_' but
of a Waggon wheel; and remain yours truly.

E. FITZGERALD.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _August_ 21/77.

MY DEAR SIR,

You have doubtless heard from Mr. Lowell since he got to Spain: he may
have mentioned that unaccomplished visit to me which he was to have
undertaken at your Desire.  I doubt the two letters I wrote to be given
him in London (through Quaritch) did not reach him: only the first which
said my house was full of Nieces, so as I must lodge him (as I did our
Laureate) at the Inn: but the second Letter was to say that I had
Houseroom, and would meet him at the Train any day and hour.  He wrote to
me the day before he left for Paris to say that he had never intended to
do more than just run down for the Day, shake hands, and away!  That I
had an Instinct against: that one half-day's meeting of two
Septuagenarians (I believe), to see one another's face for that once,
'But here, upon that Bank and Shoal of Time and' then, 'jump the Life to
come' as well as the Life before.  No: I say I am glad he did not do
that: but I had my house all ready to entertain him as best I could; and
had even planned a little Visit to our neighbouring Coast, where are the
Village remains of a once large Town devoured by the Sea: and, yet
undevoured (except by Henry VIII.), the grey walls of a Grey Friars'
Priory, beside which they used to walk, under such Sunsets as illumine
them still.  This pathetic Ruin, still remaining by the Sea, would (I
feel sure) have been more to one from the New Atlantis than all London
can show: but I should have liked better had Mr. Lowell seen it on
returning to America, rather than going to Spain, where the yet older and
more splendid Moors would soon have effaced the memory of our poor
Dunwich.  If you have a Map of England, look for it on the Eastern Coast.
If Mr. Lowell should return this way, and return in the proper Season for
such cold Climate as ours, he shall see it: and so shall you, if you
will, under like conditions; including a reasonable and available degree
of Health in myself to do the honours. . . .

I live down in such a Corner of this little Country that I see scarce any
one but my Woodbridge Fellow-townsmen, and learn but little from such
Friends as could tell me of the World beyond.  But the English do not
generally love Letter writing: and very few of us like it the more as we
get older.  So I have but little to say that deserves an Answer from you:
but please to write me a little: a word about Mr. Lowell, whom you have
doubtless heard from.  [One politeness I had prepared for him here was,
to show him some sentences in his Books which I did not like!]  Which
also leads me to say that some one sent me a number of your American
'Nation' with a Review of my redoubtable Agamemnon: written by a superior
hand, and, I think, quite discriminating in its distribution of Blame and
Praise: though I will not say the Praise was not more than deserved; but
it was where deserved, I think.

_To J. R. Lowell_. {224}

WOODBRIDGE.  _August_ 26/77.

MY DEAR SIR,

I ought scarce to trouble you amid your diplomatic cares and dignities.
But I will, so far as to say I hope you had my second letter before you
left London: saying that my house was emptied of Nieces, and I was ready
to receive you for as long as you would.  Indeed, I chiefly flinched at
the thought of your taking the trouble to come down only for a Day: which
means, less than half a Day: a sort of meeting that seems a mockery in
the lives of two men, one of whom I know by Register to be close on
Seventy.  I do indeed deprecate any one coming down out of his way: but,
if he come, I would rather he did so for such time as would allow of some
palpable Acquaintance.  And I meant to take you to no other sight than
the bare grey walls of an old Grey Friars' Priory near the Sea; and I
proposed to make myself further agreeable by showing you three or two
passages in your Books that I do not like amid all the rest which I like
so much: and had even meant to give you a very small thirty year old
Dialogue of my own, which one of your 'Study Windows' reminded me of.  All
this I meant; and, any how, wrote to say that I and my house were ready.
And there is enough of the matter.  You are busied with other and greater
things.  Nor must you think yourself called on to answer this letter at
all.

When you were to start for Spain, I was thinking what a hot time of it
you would have there: in Madrid too, I suppose, worst of all, I have
heard.  But you have Titian and Velasquez to refresh you.  Cervantes too
is not far.  We have here (some two or three years old) a Book 'Untrodden
Spain'; unaffectedly and pleasantly written by some Clergyman, Rose, who
lived chiefly among the mining folk.  But there is a Chapter in Vol. 2
entitled '[_El_]_ Pajaro_,' and giving account of a day's sport with
[Pedro the Barber] who carries a Decoy Bird, which is as another Chapter
to Don Quixote.  Ah! I look at him on my Shelf, and know that I can take
him down when I will, and that I shall do so many a time before 1878 if I
live. . . .

Tell me something of the Spanish Drama, Lope, or Calderon.  I think you
could get one acted by Virtue of your Office.

WOODBRIDGE.  [_October_, 1877.]

MY DEAR SIR--(which I will exchange for your own name if you will set me
Example).

You see I write to you; but do not expect any answer from the midst of
all your Business.  But I have lately been re-reading--(at that same old
Dunwich, too)--those Essays of yours on which you wished to see my
'Adversaria.'  These are too few and insignificant to specify by Letter:
when you return to English-speaking World, you shall, if you please, see
my Copy, or Copies, marked with a Query at such places as I stumbled at.
Were not the whole so really admirable, both in Thought and Diction, I
should not stumble at such Straws; such Straws as you can easily blow
away if you should ever care to do so.  Only, pray understand (what I
really mean) that, in all my remarks, I do not pretend to the level of an
original Writer like yourself: only as a Reader of Taste, which is a very
different thing you know, however useful now and then in the Service of
Genius.  I am accredited with the Aphorism, 'Taste is the Feminine of
Genius.'  However that may be, I have some confidence in my own.  And, as
I have read these Essays of yours more than once and again, and with
increasing Satisfaction, so I believe will other men long after me; not
as Literary Essays only, but comprehending very much beside of Human and
Divine, all treated with such a very full and universal Faculty, both in
Thought and Word, that I really do not know where to match in any work of
the kind.  I could make comparisons with the best: but I don't like
comparisons.  But I think your Work will last, as I think of very few
Books indeed.  You are yet two good years from sixty (Mr. Norton tells
me), and have yet at least a dozen more of Dryden's later harvest: pray
make good use of it: Cervantes, at any rate, I think to live to read,
though one of your great merits is, not being in a hurry: and so your
work completes itself.  But I nearer seventy than you sixty. . . .

You should get Dryden's Prefaces published separately in America, with
your own remarks on them, and also Johnson's very fine praise: in which
he praises Dryden for those unexpected turns in which he himself is so
deficient.  But pray love old Johnson, a little more than I think you do.
We have, you may know, a rather clumsy Edition of this Dryden Prose in
four 8vo volumes by Malone; the first volume all Life and a few Letters.
I have bought some three or four Copies of this work, more or less worse
for wear, to give away: one extra Copy, much the worse for wear, on a
back shelf now, waiting its destination.  No English Publisher, I
suppose, would do this work, unless under some great name: perhaps under
yours, if your own Country were not the fitter place.  As in the case of
your Essays, I don't pretend to say which is finest: but I think that to
me Dryden's Prose, _quoad_ Prose, is the finest Style of all.  So Gray, I
believe, thought: that man of Taste, very far removed, perhaps as far as
feminine from masculine, from the Man he admired.

Your Wordsworth should introduce any future Edition of him, as I think
some of Ste. Beuve's Essays do some of his men.  He rarely, you know,
gets beyond French.

Now, as I see my Paper draws short, I turn from your Works to those of
'The Great Twalmley,' viz.: the Dialogue I mentioned, and you ask for.  I
really got it out: but, on reading it again after many years, was so much
disappointed even in the little I expected that I won't send it to you,
or any one more.  It is only eighty 12 mo pages, and about twenty too
long, and the rest over-pointed (Oh Cervantes!), and all somewhat
antiquated.  But the Form of it is pretty: and the little Narrative part:
and one day I may strike out, etc., and make you a present of a pretty
Toy.  But it won't do now.

I have at last bid Adieu to poor old Dunwich: the Robin singing in the
Ivy that hangs on those old Priory walls.  A month ago I wrote to ask
Carlyle's Niece about her Uncle, and telling her of this Priory, and how
her Uncle would once have called me Dilettante; all which she read him;
he only said 'Poor, Poor old Priory!'  She says he is very well, and
abusing V. Hugo's 'Miserables.'   I have been reading his Cromwell, and
not abusing it.  You tell all the Truth about him.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _October_ 28/77.

MY DEAR SIR ('_Norton_' I will write in my next if you will anticipate me
by a reciprocal Familiarity).

I wish I had some English Life, Woodbridge, or other, to send you: but
Woodbridge, I sometimes say, is as Pompeii, in that respect; and I know
little of the World beyond but what a stray Newspaper tells me.  So I
must get back to my Friends on the Shelf.

Thence I lately took down Mr. Lowell's (I have proposed to _un-mister_
him too), Lowell's Essays, and carried them with me to that old Dunwich,
which I suppose I shall see no more this year.  Robin Redbreast--have you
him?--was piping in the Ivy along the Walls; and, under them,
Blackberries ripening from stems which those old Grey Friars picked from.
And I had the Essays abroad, and within doors; and marked with a Query
some words, or sentences, which I stumbled at: which I should not have
stumbled at had all the rest not been such capital Reading.  I really
believe I know not, on the whole, any such Essays, of that kind: and that
a very comprehensive kind, both in Subject, and Treatment.  I think he
settles many Questions that every one discusses: and on which a Final
Verdict is what we now want.  I believe the Books will endure: and that
is why I want a few blemishes, as I presume to think them, removed: and
the Author is to see my Pencil marks, when he returns to England, or to
her 'Gigantic Daughter of the West.'  I hope he will live to write many
more such Books: Cervantes, first of all!

I have also been reading Carlyle's Cromwell: which I think will last
also, and so carry along with it many of his more perishable tirades.  I
don't know indeed if his is the Final Verdict on Oliver: or on so many of
the subordinate Characters whom he sketches in so confidently.  A shrewd
Man is he; but it is not so easy to judge of men by a few stray hints of
them in Books.  A quaint instance of this Carlyle himself supplied me
with, in his total misapprehension of his hitherto unseen Correspondent
'Squire,' who burned the Cromwell Diary.  I was the intelligent Friend
who interviewed Squire; as unlike as might be in Age, Person, and
Character, to the Man Carlyle had prefigured from his Letters.  One day I
will send you the little Correspondence between T. C. and his intelligent
Friend, as rather a Curiosity in Historical Acumen.

I, Dryasdust, want to know if the Moon, the 'Harvest' Moon, too, really
'waded through the Clouds' on the night before Dunbar Battle.  She makes
so good a Figure in the Scene that I wish the Almanack to authorize her
Presence.  Carlyle is, I believe, generally accurate in these as in
sublunary matters, but I had just found him writing of Orion looking down
on Paris on August 9, when Orion is hardly up before Sunrise. . . .

And you have been so near where once I lived as Wherstead! in which
Parish my Family resided from about 1822 to 1835, at a large Square House
on the hill opposite to the Vicarage.  I know no more of Mr. Zincke than
his Books, which are very good, I think: there is a bit concerning Hodge
the English Labourer's inward thoughts as he works in a ditch through a
Winter's Day, that is--a piece of Shakespeare.  It is one of my few
recital pieces: and I was quoting it the other day to two People, who
wondered they had never observed it in the Book it came from, which is
'Egypt under the Pharaohs,' {231} I think.

WOODBRIDGE.  _February_ 14/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

It is so long since I have heard from you that, in spite of knowing how
inopportunely an idle Letter may reach any one amid any sorrows, or much
business, I venture one, you see: but whether it be a trouble to lead or
not, do not feel bound to answer it except in the fewest words, in case
you are any way indisposed.  You have--a family: you had an aged Mother,
when last I heard from you: room enough for anxieties and sorrows!

I had your printed Report on Olympia, which I do not pretend to be a
Judge [of].  I lent it to one who thinks he returned it, but certainly
did not: and I wanted to lend it to another much more competent Judge,
very much interested in the Subject, Edward Cowell, a Brother Professor
of yours at our Cambridge: the most learned man there, I believe, and the
most amiable and delightful, I believe, also.  He came here to see me a
month ago: and I had one more search for the Pamphlet which I knew was no
longer 'penes me,' which he much wished to see.  Will you send me another
Copy for him: if not to 'Professor Cowell, Cambridge, England' direct?

I have been rubbing up a little Latin from some Criticisms and
Elucidations of Catullus, by H. Munro, who edited Lucretius so capitally
that even German Scholars, I am told, accept it with a respect which they
accord to very few English.  Do you know it in America?  If not, do.  The
Text and capital English prose Translation in vol. I; and Notes in vol.
II: all admirable, it seems to me, though I do not understand his English
Punctuation.  I do not follow all Lucretius' Atoms, etc.: but other parts
are as fine to me as any Poet has done.  Catullus I have never taken much
to: though some of him too is as fine as anything else in its way, I
think.  So I have read through this Book of Munro's, only 240 pages, not
commenting on the best of the Poems, but on those which most needed
Elucidation; which are many of them the least interesting, and even most
disagreeable.  Like your Olympia, I don't understand much: but what I do
understand is so good that I feel sure the rest (and that is the larger
and perhaps more important part) is as good for those it is intended for.

Just as I shut up Catullus, I opened Keats' Love Letters just published;
and really felt no shock of change between the one Poet and the other.
This Book will doubtless have been in America long before my Letter
reaches it.  Mr. Lowell, who justly writes (in his Keats) that there is
much in a Name, will wish Keats' mistress went by some other than 'Fanny
Brawne,' which I cannot digest.

And Mr. Lowell himself?  I do not like to write to him amid his
diplomatic avocations; if I did, I should perhaps tell him that I did not
like the style of his 'Moosehead Journal,' which has been sent me by I
know not whom.  I hope he is getting on with his Cervantes; which I know
I shall like, if it be at all of the same Complexion as his other two
Volumes, which I still think are best of their kind.

WOODBRIDGE.  _February_ 20/78.

MY DEAR NORTON!

If Packet follows Packet duly, you will have received ere this a letter I
wrote you, and posted, a few hours before yours reached me.  You will
have seen that I guessed at some Shadow as of Illness in your household:
no wonderful conjecture in this World in any case; still less where a
Life of eighty years is concerned.  It is in vain to wish well: but I
wish the best.

Your mention of your Mother reminded me of another Eighty years that I
had forgotten to tell you of--Carlyle.  I wrote to enquire about him of
his Niece a month ago: he had been very poorly, she said, but was himself
again; only going in Carriage, not on foot, for his daily Exercise: wrapt
up in furry Dressing-gown, and wondering that any one else complained of
Cold.  He kept on reading assiduously, sometimes till past midnight, in
spite of all endeavours to get him to bed.  'Qu'est ce que cela fait si
je m'amuse?' as old Voltaire said on like occasions.

I have got down the Doudan {234} you recommended me: but have not yet
begun with him.  Pepys' Diary and Sir Walter, read to me for two hours of
a night, have made those two hours almost the best of the twenty-four for
all these winter months.  That Eve of Preston Battle, with the old
Baron's Prayers to his Troop!  He is tiresome afterwards, I know, with
his Bootjack.  But Sir Walter for ever!  What a fine Picture would that
make of Evan Dhu's entrance into Tully Veolan Breakfast Hall, with a
message from his Chief; he standing erect in his Tartan, while the Baron
keeps his State, and pretty Rose at the Table.  There is a subject for
one of your Artists.  Another very pretty one (I thought the other Day)
would be that of the child Keats keeping guard with a drawn sword at his
sick Mother's Chamber door.  Millais might do it over here: but I don't
know him. . . .

I will send you Carlyle's Squire correspondence, which you will keep to
yourself and Lowell: you being Carlyle's personal friend as well as
myself.  Not that there is anything that should not be further divulged:
but one must respect private Letters.  Carlyle's proves a droll instance
of even so shrewd a man wholly mistaking a man's character from his
Letters: had now that Letter been two hundred years old! and no
intelligent Friend to set C. right by ocular Demonstration.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_February_ 28/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I ventured to send you Keats' Love Letters to Miss--_Brawne_! a name in
which there is much, as you say of his, and other names. . . .  Well, I
thought you might--must--wish to see these Letters, and, may be, not get
them so readily in Spain.  So I made bold.  The Letters, I doubt not, are
genuine: whether rightly or wrongly published I can't say: only I, for
one, am glad of them.  I had just been hammering out some Notes on
Catullus, by our Cambridge Munro, Editor of Lucretius, which you ought to
have; English Notes to both, and the Prose Version of Lucretius quite
readable by itself.  Well, when Keats came, I scarce felt a change from
Catullus: both such fiery Souls as wore out their Bodies early; and I can
even imagine Keats writing such filthy Libels against any one he had a
spite against, even Armitage Brown, had Keats lived two thousand years
ago. . . .

I had a kind letter lately from Mr. Norton: and have just posted him some
Carlyle letters about that Squire business.  If you return to America
before very long you will find them there.  How long is your official
Stay in Spain?  Limited, or Unlimited?  By the bye of Carlyle, I heard
from his Niece some weeks ago that he had been poorly: but when she
wrote, himself again: only taking his daily walk in a Carriage, and
sitting up till past Midnight with his Books, in spite of Warnings to
Bed.  As old Voltaire said to his Niece on like occasion, 'Qu'est ce que
cela fait si je m'amuse?'  I have from Mudie a sensible dull Book of
Letters from a Miss Wynn: with this one good thing in it.  She has been
to visit Carlyle in 1845: he has just been to visit Bishop Thirlwall in
Wales, and duly attended Morning Chapel, as a Bishop's Guest should.  'It
was very well done; it was like so many Souls pouring in through all the
Doors to offer their orisons to God who sent them on Earth.  We were no
longer Men, and had nothing to do with Men's usages; and, after it was
over, all those Souls seemed to disperse again silent into Space.  And
not till we all met afterward in the common Room, came the Human
Greetings and Civilities.' {237}  This is, I think, a little piece worth
sending to Madrid; I am sure, the best I have to offer.

I have had read to me of nights some of Sir Walter's Scotch Novels;
Waverley, Rob, Midlothian, now the Antiquary: eking them out as charily
as I may.  For I feel, in parting with each, as parting with an old
Friend whom I may never see again.  Plenty of dull, and even some bad, I
know: but parts so admirable, and the Whole so delightful.  It is
wonderful how he sows the seed of his Story from the very beginning, and
in what seems barren ground: but all comes up in due course, and there is
the whole beautiful Story at last.  I think all this Fore-cast is to be
read in Scott's shrewd, humorous, Face: as one sees it in Chantrey's
Bust; and as he seems meditating on his Edinburgh Monument.  I feel a
wish to see that, and Abbotsford again; taking a look at Dunbar by the
way: but I suppose I shall get no further than Dunwich.

Some one (not you) sent me your Moosehead Journal: but I told Mr. Norton
I should tell you, if I wrote, that I did not like the Style of it at
all; all 'too clever by half.'  Do you not say so yourself after
Cervantes, Scott, Montaigne, etc.?  I don't know I ought to say all this
to you: but you can well afford to be told it by one of far more
authority than yours most sincerely,

E. FITZGERALD.

_To W. A. Wright_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _March_ 3/78.

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

. . . You may infer that I have been reading--yes, and with great
Interest, however little Scholarship--your Fellow-Collegian's new Book of
Notes, etc. {238}  And just as I had done my best with his Catullus, came
to hand the Love-Letters of a kindred Spirit, Keats; whose peevish
Jealousy might, two thousand years ago, have made him as bitter and
indecent against his friend Armitage Brown, as Catullus against Caesar.
But in him too Malice was not stronger than Love, any more than in
Catullus; not only of the Lesbia-Brawne, but of the Fraternal, kind.
Keats sighs after 'Poor Tom' as well as he whose 'Frater ave atque vale'
continues sighing down to these times.  (I hope I don't misquote, more
Hibernorum.)

That is a fine Figure of old Caesar entertaining his Lampooner at the
Feast.  And I have often thought what a pretty picture, for Millais to
do, of the Child Keats keeping guard outside his sick Mother's Chamber
with a drawn Sword.  If Catullus, however, were only _Fescennining_, his
'Malice' was not against Caesar, but against the Nemesis that might else
be revenged on him--eh?  But I don't understand how Suetonius, or those
he wrote for, could have forgotten, though for party purposes they may
have ignored, the nature and humour of that _Fescennine_ which is known
to Scholars two thousand years after.  How very learned, and probably all
wrong, have I become, since becoming interested in this Book!

WOODBRIDGE.  _March_ 21 [1878].

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

. . . The Enclosed only adds a little to the little Paper of _Data_:
{239} you may care to add so much in better MS. than mine to the leaves I
sent you.  Those leaves were more intended for such an Edition of the
Letters in batches, as now edited; and, as many of them are private
right, _so_ edited they must continue for some time, I suppose.

An odd coincidence happened only yesterday about them.  I was looking to
Lamb's Letter to Manning of Feb. 26, 1808, where he extols Braham, the
Singer, who (he says) led his Spirit 'as the Boys follow Tom the Piper.'
I had not thought who Tom was: rather acquiesced in some idea of the
'pied Piper of Hamelin'; and, not half an hour after, chancing to take
down Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, {240a} found Tom against the
Maypole, with a ring of Dancers about him.  I suppose Tom survived in
'_Folk lore_' . . . till dear Lamb's time: but how he, a Cockney, knew of
it, I don't know.

I was looking for Keats (when I happened on Browne) to find the passage
you quote {240b}: but (of course) I could not find the Book I wanted.  Nor
can I construe him any more than so much of Shakespeare: whether from the
negligent hurry of both (Johnson says Shakespeare often contented himself
with a halfborn expression), or from some Printer's error.  The meaning
is clear enough to me, if I conjecture the context right; and more so to
you, I dare say.  The passage is one of those bad ones, except the first
line, which he afterwards repeated, mutatis mutandis,

      The leaves
   That _tremble_ round a Nightingale, {240c}

and is one of those which justly incensed the Quarterly, and which K.
himself knew were bad: but he must throw off the Poem red hot, and could
not alter.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _April_ 4, 1878.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I wish you would not impose on yourself to write me a Letter; which you
say is 'in your head.'  You have Literary work, and a Family to enjoy
with you what spare time your Professional Studies leave you.  Whereas I
have nothing of any sort that I am engaged to do: all alone for months
together: taking up such Books as I please; and rather liking to write
Letters to my Friends, whom I now only communicate with by such means.
And very few of my oldest Friends, here in England, care to answer me,
though I know from no want of Regard: but I know that few sensible men,
who have their own occupations, care to write Letters unless on some
special purpose; and I now rarely get more than one yearly Letter from
each.  Seeing which, indeed, I now rarely trouble them for more.  So pray
be at ease in this respect: you have written to me, as I to you, more
than has passed between myself and my fifty years old Friends for some
years past.  I have had two notes from you quite lately: one to tell me
that Squire reached you; and another that he was on his way back here.  I
was in no hurry for him, knowing that, if he got safe into your hands, he
would continue there as safe as in my own.  I also had your other two
Copies of Olympia: one of which I sent to Cowell, who is always too busy
to write to me, except about twice a year, in his Holydays.

I am quite content to take History as you do, that is, as the
Squire-Carlyle presents it to us; not looking the Gift Horse in the
Mouth.  Also, I am sure you are quite right about the Keats' Letters.  I
hope I should have revolted from the Book had anything in it detracted
from the man: but all seemed to me in his favour, and therefore I did not
feel I did wrong in having the secret of that heart opened to me.  I hope
Mr. Lowell will not resent my thinking he might so far sympathize with
me.  In fact, could he, could you, resist taking up, and reading, the
Letters, however doubtful their publication might have seemed to your
Conscience?

Now I enclose you a little work of mine {242} which I hope does no
irreverence to the Man it talks of.  It is meant quite otherwise.  I
often got puzzled, in reading Lamb's Letters, about some Data in his Life
to which the Letters referred: so I drew up the enclosed for my own
behoof, and then thought that others might be glad of it also.  If I set
down his Miseries, and the one Failing for which those Miseries are such
a Justification, I only set down what has been long and publickly known,
and what, except in a Noodle's eyes, must enhance the dear Fellow's
character, instead of lessening it.  'Saint Charles!' said Thackeray to
me thirty years ago, putting one of C. L.'s letters {243} to his
forehead; and old Wordsworth said of him: 'If there be a Good Man,
Charles Lamb is one.'

I have been interested in the Memoir and Letters of C. Sumner: a
thoroughly sincere, able, and (I should think) affectionate man to a few;
without Humour, I suppose, or much artistic Feeling.  You might like to
look over a slight, and probably partial, Memoir of A. de Musset, by his
Brother, who (whether well or ill) leaves out the Absinthe, which is
generally supposed to have shortened the Life of that man of Genius.
Think of Clarissa being one of his favourite Books; he could not endure
the modern Parisian Romance.  It reminded me of our Tennyson (who has
some likeness, 'mutatis mutandis' of French Morals, Absinthe, etc., to
the Frenchman)--of his once saying to me of Clarissa, 'I love those
large, still, Books.'

I parted from Doudan with regret; that is, from two volumes of him; all I
had: but I think I see four quoted.  That is pretty, his writing to his
Brother, who is dwelling (1870-1) in some fortified Town, on whose
ramparts, now mounted with cannon, 'I used to gather Violets.'  And I
cannot forget what he says to a Friend at that crisis, 'Engage in some
long course of Study to drown Trouble in:' and he quotes Ste. Beuve
saying, one long Summer Day in the Country, 'Lisons tout Madame de
Sevigne.'  You may have to advise me to some such course before long.  I
will avoid speaking, or, so far as I can, thinking, of what I cannot
prevent, or alter.  You say you like my Letters: which I say is liking
what comes from this old Country, more yours than mine.  I have heard
that some of your People would even secure a Brick, or Stone, from some
old Church here to imbed in some new Church a-building over the Atlantic.
Plenty of such materials might be had, for this foolish People are
restoring, and rebuilding, old Village Churches that have grown together
in their Fields for Centuries.  Only yesterday I wrote to decline helping
such a work on a poor little Church I remember these sixty years.  Well,
you like my Letters; I think there is too much of this one; but I will
end, as I believe I began, in praying you not to be at any trouble in
answering it, or any other, from

Yours sincerely,
E. F. G.

Pray read the Scene at Mrs. MacCandlish's Inn when Colonel Mannering
returns from India to Ellangowan.  It is Shakespeare.

WOODBRIDGE.  _April_ 16/1878.

Only a word; to say that yesterday came Squire-Carlyle from you: and a
kind long letter from Mr. Lowell: and--and the first Nightingale, who
sang in my Garden the same song as in Shakespeare's days: and, before the
Day had closed, Dandie Dinmont came into my room on his visit to young
Bertram in Portanferry Gaol-house.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _April_ 17/78.

MY DEAR (SIR ---)--(LOWELL)?

Your letter reached me just after hearing this year's first Nightingale
in my Garden: both very welcome.  I am very glad you did not feel bound
to answer me before; I should not write otherwise to you or to some very
old Friends who, like most sensible men as they grow older, dislike all
unnecessary writing more and more.  So that I scarce remind them of
myself more than once a year now.  I shall feel sure of your good Will
toward me whether you write or not; as I do of theirs.

Mr. Norton thinks, as a Gentleman should, that Keats' Letters should not
have been published.  I hope I should not have bought them, had I not
gathered from the Reviews that they were not derogatory to him.  You
know, I suppose, that she of whom K. wrote about to others so warmly, his
Charmian, was not Fanny Brawne.  Some years ago Lord Houghton wrote me it
was: but he is a busy man of the World, though really a very good Fellow:
indeed, he did not deserve your _skit_ about his 'Finsbury Circus
gentility,' which I dare say you have forgotten.  I have not seen him,
any more than much older and dearer friends, for these twenty years:
never indeed was very intimate with him; but always found him a good
natured, unaffected, man.  He sent me a printed Copy of the first draught
of the opening of Keats' Hyperion; very different from the final one: if
you wished, I would manage to send it to you, quarto size as it is.  This
now reminds me that I will ask his Lordship why it was not published (as
I suppose it was not).  For it ought to be.  He said he did not know if
it were not the second draught rather than the first.  But he could
hardly have doubted if he gave his thoughts to it, I think. . . .

I want you to do De Quincey; certainly a very remarkable Figure in
Literature, and not yet decisively drawn, as you could do it.  There is a
Memoir of him by one Page, showing a good deal of his familiar, and
Family, Life: all amiable: perhaps the frailties omitted.  It is curious,
his regard to Language even when writing (as quite naturally he does) to
his Daughter, 'I was disturbed last night at finding no natural, or
spontaneous, opening--how barbarous by the way, is this collision of
_ings_--find_ing_--open_ing_, etc.'  And some other instances.

I cannot understand why I have not yet taken to Hawthorne, a Man of real
Genius, and that of a kind which I thought I could relish.  I will have
another Shot.  His Notes of Travel seemed to me very shrewd, original,
and sincere.  Charles Sumner, of so different a Genius, also appears to
me very truthful, and, I still fancy, strongly attached to the few he
might care for.  I am sorry he got a wrong idea of Sir Walter from Lord
Brougham, and the Whigs, who always hated Scott.  Indeed (as I well
remember) it was a point of Faith with them that Scott had not written
the Novels, till the Catastrophe discovered him: on which they changed
their Cry into a denunciation of his having written them only for money,
'Scott's weak point,' Sumner quotes from Brougham.  As if Scott loved
Money for anything else than to spend it: not only on Lands and House
(which I maintain were simply those of a Scotch Gentleman) but to help
any poor Devil that applied to him.  Then that old Toad Rogers must tell
Sumner that Manzoni's 'Sposi' were worth any ten of Scott's; yes, after
Scott's Diary spoke of 'I really like Rogers, etc.,' and such moderate
expressions of regard as Scott felt for him and his Breakfast of London
Wits.

Here am I running over to Chapter II.  You will be surfeited, like your
Captain, if not on Turtles' Eggs.  But you can eat me at intervals, you
know, or not at all.  Only you will certainly read my last Great Work,
{247} which I enclose, drawn up first for my own benefit, in reading
Lamb's Letters, as now printed in batches to his several Correspondents;
and so I thought others than myself might be glad of a few Data to refer
the letters to.  Pollock calls my Paper 'Cotelette d'Agneau a la minute.'

As to my little Dialogue, I can't send it: so pretty in Form, I think,
and with some such pretty parts: but then some odious smart writing,
which I had forgotten till I looked it over again before sending to you.
But I will send you the Calderon which you already like.

And, if you would send me any samples of Spanish, send me some Playbill
(of the old Drama, if now played), or some public Advertisement, or
Newspaper; this is what I should really like.  As to Books, I dare say
Quaritch has pretty well ferreted them out of Spain.  Give a look, if you
can, at a Memoir of Alfred de Musset written by his Brother.  Making
allowance for French morals, and Absinthe (which latter is not mentioned
in the Book) Alfred appears to me a fine Fellow, very un-French in some
respects.  He did not at all relish the new Romantic School, beginning
with V. Hugo, and now alive in --- and Co.--(what I call The _Gurgoyle_
School of Art, whether in Poetry, Painting, or Music)--he detested the
modern 'feuilleton' Novel, and read Clarissa! . . .  Many years before A.
de M. died he had a bad, long, illness, and was attended by a Sister of
Charity.  When she left she gave him a Pen with 'Pensez a vos promesses'
worked about in coloured silks: as also a little worsted 'Amphore' she
had knitted at his Bed side.  When he came to die, some seventeen years
after, he had these two little things put with him in his Coffin.

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 1878.

Ecce iterum--Crispin!  I think you will soon call me '_Les_
FitzGerald_s_' as Madame de Sevigne called her too officious friend
'_Les_ Hacqueville_s_.'  However, I will risk that in sending you a Copy
of that first Draught of an opening to Hyperion.  I have got it from that
Finsbury Circus Houghton, who gave me the first Copy, which I keep: so
you shall have this, if you please; I know no one more worthy of it; and
indeed I told Lord H. I wanted it for you; so you see he bears no malice.
He is in truth a very good natured fellow. . . .

Well, to leave that, he writes me that he had the original MS.: it was
stolen from him.  Fortunately, a friend of his (Edmund Lushington) had
taken a MS. copy, and from that was printed what I send you.  The
corrections are from Lushington.  I do not understand why Lord H. does
not publish it.  He says he has just written to Bendizzy to do something
from the state purse for an aged Sister of Keats, now surviving in great
Poverty.  Her name is 'Fanny.'  Ben might do much worse: some say he is
about worse, now: I do not know; I cannot help: and I distress myself as
little as I can.  'Lisons tout Madame de Sevigne,' said Ste. Beuve one
day to some Friends in the Country; and Doudan (whom Mr. Norton admires,
as I do) bids a Friend take that advice in 1871.  One may be glad of it
here in England ere 1879.

A short while ago we were reading the xith Chapter of Guy Mannering,
where Colonel Mannering returns to Ellangowan after seventeen years.  A
long gap in a Story, Scott says: but scarcely so in Life, to any one who
looks back so far.  And, at the end of the Novel, we found a pencil note
of mine, 'Finished 10.30 p.m.  Tuesday Decr. 17/1861.'  Not on this
account, but on account of its excellence, pray do read the Chapter if
you can get the Book: it is altogether admirable--Cervantes--Shakespeare.
I mean that Chapter of the Colonel's return to Mrs. MacCandlish's Inn at
Kippletringan.

We are now reading 'Among the Spanish People,' by the Mr. Rose who wrote
'Untrodden Spain'; a really honest, good-hearted, fellow, I think: with
some sentimentality amid his Manhood, and (I suppose) rather too rose-
coloured in his Estimate of the People he has long lived among.  But he
can't help recalling Don Quixote.  He has a really delightful account of
a Visit he pays to a _pueblo_ he calls Banos up the Sierra Morena: one
would expect Don and Sancho there, by one of the old Houses with Arms
over the Door.  Pray get hold of this Book also if you can: else 'les
Hacquevilles' will have to buy it second hand from Mudie and send--'Coals
to Newcastle.'

With Keats I shall send you an Athenaeum with a rather humorous account
of a Cockney squabble about whether Shelley called his Lark an
'_un_-bodied,' or '_em_-bodied,' Spirit.  I really forget which way was
settled by MS.  Shelley is now the rage in Cockayne; but he is too
unsubstantial for me.

It is now hot here: I suppose something [like] February in Andalusia.  Do
you find Madrid Climate as bad as Rose and others describe it?  He has
also a very pleasant [chapter] about the Lavanderas of the Manzanares.
What delightful words!

_To W. A. Wright_.

[1878.]

On looking into my dear old Montaigne, I find a passage which may have
rustled in Shakespeare's head while doing Othello: it is about the
pleasures of Military Life in the Chapter 'De l'Experience' beginning 'Il
n'est occupation plaisante comme la militaire, etc.' in course of which
occurs in Florio, 'The courageous _minde-stirring_ harmonic of warlike
music, etc.'  What a funny thing is that closing Apostrophe to
Artillery--but this is not AEsthetic.

Bacon's appropriation you know of C'est bien choisir de ne choisir pas'
(De la Vanite, I _think_).

WOODBRIDGE.  _June_ 11, [1878]

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

If you do not remember the passage in Bacon's Essays {251} about 'not to
decide, etc.'  I must have fancied it.  I am glad you recognize the
Othello bit of Montaigne.  You know, as I know, the nonsense of talking
of Shakespeare stealing such things: one is simply pleased at finding his
footsteps in the Books he read, just as one is in walking over the fields
he walked about Stratford and seeing the Flowers, and hearing the Birds,
he heard and saw, and told of.  My Canon is, there is no plagiarism when
he who adopts has proved that he could originate what he adopts, and a
great deal more: which certainly absolves Shakespeare from any such
Charge--even 'The Cloud capt Towers, etc.'  That Passage in Othello about
the Propontic and the Hellespont, was, I have read, an afterthought,
after reading some Travel: and, like so many Afterthoughts, I must think,
a Blunder: breaking the Torrent of Passion with a piece of Natural
History.  One observes it particularly when acted: the actor down on his
Knees, etc.  Were I to act Othello (there'd be many a Bellow

   From Pit, Boxes, etc., on that occasion) {252}

I should leave out the passage. . . .

An answer from Carlyle's Niece to my half-yearly enquiry tells me that he
is well, and hardy, and reading Goethe which he never tires of: glancing
over Reviews which he calls 'Floods of Nonsense,' etc.  I sent them
Groome's 'Only Darter,' which I think so good that I shall get him to let
me print it for others beside those of the Ipswich Journal: it seems to
me a beautiful Suffolk 'Idyll' (why not _Ei_dyll?) and so it seemed to
those at Chelsea.  By the by, I will send you their Note, if Groome
returns it to me.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_July_ 2/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

You wrote me a very kind Invitation--to your own home--in America!  But
it is all too late for that; more on account of habit than time of life:
I will not repeat what I feel sure I have told you before on that
subject.  You will be more interested by the enclosed note: of which this
is the simple Story.  Some three weeks ago I wrote my half-yearly note of
enquiry to Carlyle's Niece; he was, she said, quite well; walking by the
river before Breakfast: driving out of an Afternoon: constantly reading:
just then reading Goethe of whom he never tired: and glancing over
Magazines and Reviews which he called 'Floods of Nonsense, Cataracts of
Twaddle,' etc.  I had sent him the enclosed paper, {253} written by a
Suffolk Archdeacon for his Son's East Anglian Notes and Queries: and now
reprinted, with his permission, by me, for the benefit of others,
yourself among the number.  Can you make out the lingo, and see what I
think the pretty Idyll it tells of?  If I were in America, at your home,
I would recite it to you; nay, were the Telephone prepared across the
Atlantic!  Well: it was sent, as I say, to Carlyle: who, by what his
Niece replied, I suppose liked it too.  And, by way of return, I suppose,
he sends me a Volume of Norway Kings and Knox: which I was very glad to
have, not only as a token of his Good Will, but also because Knox was, I
believe, the only one of his works I had not read.  And I was obliged to
confess to him in my acknowledgment of his kindly Present, that I
relished these two children of his old Age as much as any of his more
fiery Manhood.  I had previously asked if he knew anything of John
Wesley's Journal, which I was then re-perusing; as he his Goethe: yes, he
knew that Wesley too, and 'thought as I did about it' his Niece said; and
in reply to my Question if he knew anything of two 'mountains' (as
English people called hills a hundred years ago) which Wesley says were
called 'The Peas' at Dunbar {254}--why, here is his Answer: evincing the
young Blood in the old Man still.

Wesley's Journal is very well worth reading, and having; not only as an
outline of his own singular character, but of the conditions of England,
Ireland, and Scotland, in the last Century.  Voila par exemple un Livre
dont Monsr Lowell pourrait faire une jolie critique, s'il en voudrait,
mais il s'occupe de plus grandes choses, du Calderon, du Cervantes.  I
always wish to run on in bad French: but my friends would not care to
read it.  But pray make acquaintance with this Wesley; if you cannot find
a copy in America, I will send you one from here: I believe I have given
it to half a dozen Friends.  Had I any interest with Publishers, I would
get them to reprint parts of it, as of my old Crabbe, who still sticks in
my Throat.

I have taken that single little Lodging at Dunwich for the next three
months, and shall soon be under those Priory Walls again.  But the poor
little 'Dunwich Rose,' brought by those monks from the North Country,
will have passed, after the hot weather we are at last having.  Write
when you will, and not till then; I believe in your friendly regard,
with, or without, a Letter to assure me of it.

WOODBRIDGE.  _October_ 15/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

. . . I got little more than a Fortnight at that old Dunwich; for my
Landlady took seriously ill, and finally died: and the Friend {255a} whom
I went to meet there became so seriously ill also as to be obliged to
return to London before August was over.  So then I went to an ugly place
{255b} on the sea shore also, some fifteen miles off the old Priory; and
there was with some Nephews and Nieces, trying to read the Novels from a
Circulating Library with indifferent Success.  And now here am I at home
once more; getting my Garden, if not my House, in order; and here I shall
be probably all Winter, except for a few days visit to that sick Friend
in London, if he desires it. . . .

We too have been having a Fortnight of delightful weather, so as one has
been able to sit abroad all the Day.  And now, that Spirit which Tennyson
sung of in one of his early Poems is heard, as it were, walking and
talking to himself among the decaying flower-beds.  This Season (such as
we have been enjoying)--my old Crabbe sings of it too, in a very pathetic
way to me: for it always seems to me an Image of the Decline of Life
also.

   It was a Day ere yet the Autumn closed,
   When Earth before her Winter's War reposed;
   When from the Garden as we look'd above,
   No Cloud was seen, and nothing seem'd to move;
   [When the wide River was a silver Sheet,
   And upon Ocean slept the unanchored fleet;] {256a}
   When the wing'd Insect settled in our sight,
   And waited wind to recommence its flight. {256b}

You see I cross out two lines which, fine as they are, go beyond the
Garden: but I am not sure if I place them aright.  The two last lines you
will feel, I think: for I suppose some such Insect is in America too.
(You must not mind Crabbe's self-contradiction about 'nothing moving.') . . .

I have two Letters I want to send Lowell: but I do not like writing as if
to extort answers from him.  You see Carlyle's Note within: I do not want
it back, thank you.  Good night: for Night it is: and my Reader is
coming.  We look forward to The Lammermoor, and Old Mortality before
long.  I made another vain attempt on George Eliot at Lowestoft,
Middlemarch.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Octr._ 17/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I scarce like to write to you again because of seeming to exact a Letter.
I do not wish that at all, pray believe it: I don't think letter-writing
men are much worth.  What puts me up to writing just now is, the enclosed
two Letters by other men; one of them relating to yourself; the other to
the Spain you are now in.  I sent Frederic Tennyson, eldest Brother of
the Laureate, your Study Windows: and now you see what he says about it.
He is a Poet too, as indeed all the Brethren more or less are; and is _a
Poet_: only with (I think) a somewhat monotonous Lyre.  But a very noble
Man in all respects, and one whose good opinion is worth having, however
little you read, or care for, opinion about yourself, one way or other.  I
do not say that I agree with all he says: but here is his Letter.  I am
going to send him a Volume of yours 'Among my Books,' which I know is a
maturer work than the Windows; and you know what I think of it.

The other Letter, or piece of Letter, is from our Professor Cowell, and
has surely a good Suggestion concerning a Spanish Dictionary.  You might
put some Spanish Scholar on the scent.  And so much about my two Letters.

I was but little at my old Dunwich this Summer, for my Landlady fell
sick, and died: and the Friend I went to be with was obliged to leave; I
doubt his Brain is becoming another Ruin to be associated with that old
Priory wall, already so pathetic to me.  So here am I back again at my
old Desk for all the Winter, I suppose, with my old Crabbe once more open
before me, disembowelled too; for I positively meditate a Volume made up
of 'Readings' from his Tales of the Hall, that is, all his better Verse
connected with as few words of my own Prose as will connect it
intelligibly together.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Decr._ 15/78.

MY DEAR NORTON,

You are very good to ask for my _OEdipodes_, etc.  And when I can find
Eyes as well as Courage to copy out a '_brouillon_,' I will see what can
be done.  Only, you and Professor Goodwin must not feel any way bound to
print them, even if you both approved of them; and that is not at all
certain.  How would you two Scholars approve of two whole Scenes omitted
in either OEdipus (as I know to be the case), and the Choephori {259a}
reduced almost to an Act?  So that would be, I doubt.  Then, as you know,
Sophocles does not strike Fire out of the Flint, as old AEschylus does;
and though my Sophocles has lain by me (lookt at now and then) these ten
years, I was then a dozen years older than when Agamemnon haunted me,
until I laid his Ghost so far as I myself was concerned.  By the way, I
see that Dr. Kennedy, Professor of Greek at our Cambridge, has published
a Translation of Agamemnon in 'rhythmic English.'  So, at any rate, I
have been the cause of waking up two great men (Browning and Kennedy) and
a minor Third (I forget his name) {259b} to the Trial, if it were only
for the purpose of extinguishing my rash attempt.  However that may be, I
cannot say my attempt on Sophocles would please you and my American
Patrons (in England I have none) so well as AEschylus; indeed I only see
in what I remember to have done, good English, and fair Verse, beyond the
chief merit of shaping the Plays to modern Taste by the very excisions
which Scholars will most deprecate.  However, you shall see, one day. . . .

I want to send you a very little volume by Charles Tennyson, long ago
published: too modest to make a noise: worth not only all me, but all ---
, ---, & Co. put together.  Three such little volumes have appeared, but
just appeared; like Violets, I say: to be overlooked by the 'madding
Crowd,' but I believe to smell sweet and blossom when all the gaudy
Growths now in fashion are faded and gone.  He ought to be known in
America--everywhere; is he?

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Decr._ 19/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am writing to you because you say you like to hear from me.  I dare
say, a Letter from your home, or mine, is acceptable in Madrid, which, by
the by, if Travellers' Stories be true, must be terrible this winter: and
I always try to stuff my Letters with all I can about other people more
or less worth hearing of.  But for that I have but little to say,
certainly nothing worth your keeping.  But if you like me to write, no
matter why.  I wish I could find you a short Letter written to me this
time last year by C. Merivale, Dean of Ely, Roman Historian; a man of
infinite dry humour, and quaint fancy.  I have put it away in some safe
place where (of course) I can't find it.  Perhaps the like may happen to
yourself now and then.  I tell him that some one should pick up his Table-
talk and Letter-talk: for he of course would not do it himself.  I have
known him from College days, fifty years ago; but have never read his
History: never having read any History but Herodotus, I believe.  But I
should like you to see how an English Dean and Roman Historian can write
in spite of Toga and Canonicals.

_December_ 22.

I left off when my Reader came to finish The Bride of Lammermoor; as
wonderful to me as ever.  O, the Austens, Eliots, and even Thackerays,
won't eclipse Sir Walter for long.

To come down rather a little from him, my Calderon, which you speak
of--very many beside myself, with as much fair Dramatic Spirit, knowledge
of good English and English Verse, would do quite as well as you think I
do, if they would not hamper themselves with Forms of Verse, and Thought,
irreconcilable with English Language and English Ways of Thinking.  I am
persuaded that, to keep Life in the Work (as Drama must) the Translator
(however inferior to his Original) must re-cast that original into his
own Likeness, more or less: the less like his original, so much the
worse: but still, the live Dog better than the dead Lion; in Drama, I
say.  As to Epic, is not Cary still the best Dante?  Cowper and Pope were
both Men of Genius, out of my Sphere; but whose Homer still holds its
own?  The elaborately exact, or the 'teacup-time' Parody?  Is not
Fairfax' Tasso good?  I never read Harington's Ariosto, English or
Italian.  Another shot have I made at Faust in Bayard Taylor's Version:
but I do not even get on with him as with Hayward, hampered as he
(Taylor) is with his allegiance to original metres, etc.  His Notes I was
interested in: but I shall die ungoethed, I doubt, so far as Poetry goes:
I always believe he was Philosopher and Critic.

But, harking back to Calderon, surely you have seen the 'Magico' printed
from the Duc d'Osuna's original MS., with many variations from the text
as we have it.  This volume is edited, in French, by 'Alfred Morel
Fatio,' printed at 'Heilbronn' (wherever that is), and to be bought of
'M. Murillo, Calle de Alcala, Num. 18, Madrid.'  It contains a Facsimile
of the old Boy's MS.  I will send you my Copy if there be 'no Coal in
Newcastle.'

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 18/79.

MY DEAR NORTON,

It is over six months, I believe, since we exchanged a letter; mine the
last shot: which I mention only because that has been my reason for not
writing again till I should hear from you that all was well enough with
you and yours to justify my writing an idle letter.  You have spoken of
an aged Mother:--if your Winter has been such as ours!  And not over yet,
as scarce a leaf on the trees, and a N. E. wind blowing Cold, Cough,
Bronchitis, etc., and the confounded Bell of a neighbouring Church
announcing a Death, day after day.  I certainly never remember so long,
and so mortal a Winter: among young as well as old.  Among the latter, I
have just lost my elder, and only surviving Brother.  But I shall close
this Bill of Mortality before turning over the leaf.

Well: it is Mr. Clarke's pamphlet which has encouraged me to 'take up the
pen,' for I think it was you who sent it to me.  All I am qualified to
say about it is, that it is very well and earnestly written; but on a
Subject, like your own Olympia, that I am no Judge of.  I think of
forwarding it to Cowell at our Cambridge, who is a Judge of Everything, I
think, while pretending to Nothing. . . .

This reminds me of all the pains he bestowed on me five and twenty years
ago; of which the result is one final Edition of Omar and Jami. . . .
Omar remains as he was; Jami (Salaman) is cut down to two-thirds of his
former proportion, and very much improved, I think.  It is still in a
wrong key: Verse of Miltonic strain, unlike the simple Eastern; I
remember trying that at first, but could not succeed.  So there is little
but the Allegory itself (not a bad one), and now condensed into a very
fair Bird's Eye view; quite enough for any Allegory, I think. . . .

And--(this Letter is to be all about myself)--by this post I send you my
Handbook of Crabbe's Tales of the Hall, of which I am so doubtful that I
do not yet care to publish it.  I wished to draw a few readers to a Book
which nobody reads, by an Abstract of the most readable Parts connected
with as little of my Prose as would tell the story of much prosaic Verse,
but that very amount of prosy Verse may help to soak the story into the
mind (as Richardson, etc.) in a way that my more readable Abstract does
not.  So it may only serve to remind any one of a Book--which he never
read!  The Original must be more obsolete in America than here in
England; however, I should like to know what you make of it: and you see
that you may tell me very plainly, for it is not as an Author, but only
as Author's Showman that I appear.

It is rather shameful to take another Sheet because of almost filling the
first with myself.  And I have but little to tell in it.  Carlyle I have
not heard of for these six months: nor Tennyson: I must write to hear how
they have weathered this mortal Winter.  Tennyson's elder, not eldest,
Brother Charles is dead: and I was writing only yesterday to persuade
Spedding to insist on Macmillan publishing a complete edition of Charles'
Sonnets: graceful, tender, beautiful, and quite original, little things.
Two thirds of them would be enough: but no one can select in such a case,
you know.  I have been reading again your Hawthorne's Journal in England
when he was Consul here; this I have: I cannot get his 'Our old Home,'
nor his Foreign Notes: can you send me any small, handy, Edition of these
two last?  I delight in them because of their fearless Truthfulness as
well as for their Genius.  I have just taken down his Novels, or
Romances, to read again, and try to relish more than I have yet done; but
I feel sure the fault must be with me, as I feel about Goethe, who is yet
as sealed a Book to me as ever. . . .  I have (alas!) got through all Sir
Walter's Scotch Novels this winter, even venturing further on Kenilworth:
which is wonderful for Plot: and one scene, Elizabeth reconciling her
Rival Earls at Greenwich, seeming to me as good as Shakespeare's Henry
VIII., which is mainly Fletcher's, I am told.  I have heard nothing of
Mr. Lowell since I heard of you, and do think that I will pitch him a
Crabbe into the midst of Madrid, if he be still there.  (N.B.  Some of
Crabbe is not in the Text but from MS. first (and best) readings printed
in the Son's edition.)

The Nightingale is now telling me that he is not dead.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 20/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

By this post I send you a bit of a Book, in which you see that I only
play very second Fiddle.  It is not published yet, as I wait for a few
friends to tell me if it be worth publishing, or better kept among
ourselves, who know Crabbe as well as myself.  You could tell me better
than any one, only that I doubt if any Transatlantic Man can care, even
if he knows of a Writer whose Books are all but unread by his own
Countrymen, so obsolete has become his Subject (in this Book) as well as
his way of treating it.  So I think I may exonerate you from giving an
opinion, and will only send it to you for such amusement as it may afford
you in your Exile.  I fancied I could make a pleasant Abstract of a much
too long and clumsy Book, and draw a few Readers to the well-nigh
forgotten Author.  But, on looking over my little work, I doubt that my
short and readable Handybook will not leave any such impression as the
long, rather un-readable, original; mere length having, you know, the
inherent Virtue of soaking it in: so as my Book will scarce do but as a
reminder of the original, which nobody reads! . . .

Voila assez sur ce sujet la.  I think that you will one day give us an
account of your Spanish Consulship, as Hawthorne did of his English: a
noble Book which I have just been reading over again.  His 'Our old Home'
is out of print here; and I have asked Mr. Norton to send me any handy
Edition of it, as also of the Italian Journal, my Copies having been lent
out past recovery.  I am going to begin again with his Scarlet Letter and
Seven Gables; which (oddly to myself) I did not take to.  And yet I think
they are not out of my line, or reach, I ought to say.

We have had such a long, and mortal Winter as never do I remember in my
seventy years, which struck 70 on March 31 last.  I have just lost a
Brother--75.  Proximus ardet, etc.  But I escaped through all these seven
months Winter, till a week or ten days ago, when a South Wind and
Sunshine came for a Day, and one expatiated abroad, and then down comes a
North Easter, etc.  I was like the Soldier in Crabbe's Old Bachelor (now
with you), who compares himself to the Soldier stricken by a random Shot,
when resting on his Arms, etc. {267}  So Cold, Cough, Bronchitis, etc.
And To-day Sunshine again, and Ruisenor (do you know him?) in my Shrubs
only just be-greening, and I am a Butterfly again.  I have heard nothing
of Carlyles, Tennysons, etc., save that the latter had written some
Ballad about Lucknow.  I shall be glad to hear a word of yourself,
Calderon, and Don Quixote, the latter of whom [Greek text] from my
Bookshelf.  Yes, yes, I am soon coming.

WOODBRIDGE.  _June_ 13/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

I had just written a Letter to Tennyson, a thing I had not done these two
years, when one was brought to me with what I thought his Subscription,
which I have not seen for twice two years, I suppose.  Well, but the
Letter was from you.  I ought not to write again so quick: but you know I
never exact a Reply: especially as you never will answer what I ask you,
which I rather admire too.  To be sure you have so much filled your
Letter with my Crabbe that you have told me nothing of yourself,
Calderon, and Cervantes, both of whom, I suppose, are fermenting, and
maturing, in your head.  Cowell says he will come to this coast this
Summer with Don Quixote that we may read him together: so, if you should
come, you will find yourself at home.  I have said all I can say about
your taking any such trouble as coming down here only to shake hands with
me, as you talk of.  I never make any sort of 'hospitality' to the few
who ever do come this way, but just put a fowl in the Pot (as Don
Quixote's _ama_ might do), and hire a Shandrydan for a Drive, or a Boat
on the river, and 'There you are,' as one of Dickens' pleasant young
fellows says.  But I never can ask any one to come, and out of his way,
to see me, a very ancient, and solitary, Bird indeed.  But you know all
about it.  'Parlons d'autres choses,' as Sevigne says.

I was curious to know what an American, and of your Quality, would say of
Crabbe.  The manner and topics (Whig, Tory, etc.) are almost obsolete in
this country, though I remember them well: how then must they appear to
you and yours?  The 'Ceremoniousness' you speak of is overdone for
Crabbe's time: he overdid it in his familiar intercourse, so as to
disappoint everybody who expected 'Nature's sternest Poet,' etc.; but he
was all the while observing.  I know not why he persists in his Thee and
Thou, which certainly Country Squires did not talk of, except for an
occasional Joke, at the time his Poem dates from, 1819: and I warned my
Readers in that stillborn Preface to change that form into simple 'You.'
If this Book leaves a melancholy impression on you, what then would all
his others?  Leslie Stephen says his Humour is heavy (Qy is not his
Tragedy?), and wonders how Miss Austen could admire him as it appears she
did; and you discern a relation between her and him.  I find plenty of
grave humour in this Book: in the Spinster, the Bachelor, the Widow, etc.
All which I pointed out (in the still-born) to L. S. . . .  He says too
that Crabbe is 'incapable of Epigram,' which also you do not agree in;
Epigrams more of Humour than Wit; sometimes only hinted, as in those two
last lines of that disagreeable, and rather incomprehensible Sir Owen
Dale.  I think he will do in the land of Cervantes still.

When my Copy of Tennyson's Lover's Tale comes home I will send it to you.
. . .  As to Gray--Ah, to think of that little Elegy inscribed among the
Stars, while ---, --- & Co., are blazing away with their Fireworks here
below.  I always think that there is more Genius in most of the three
volume Novels than in Gray: but by the most exquisite Taste, and
indefatigable lubrication, he made of his own few thoughts, and many of
other men's, a something which we all love to keep ever about us. {270}  I
do not think his scarcity of work was from Design: he had but a little to
say, I believe, and took his time to say it. . . .

Only think of old Carlyle, who was very feeble indeed during the winter,
having read through all Shakespeare to himself during these latter Spring
months.  So his Niece writes me.  I do not hear of his doing the like by
his Goethe.

I had another shot at your Hawthorne, a Man of fifty times Gray's Genius,
but I could not take to him.  Painfully microscopic and elaborate on
dismal subjects, I still thought: but I am quite ready to admit that (as
in Goethe's case) the fault lies in me.  I think I have a good feeling
for such things; but 'non omnia possumus, etc.;' some Screw loose.  'C'est
egal.'  That is a serviceable word for so much.

Now have I any more that turns up for this wonderful Letter?  I should
put it in, for I do think it might amuse you in Madrid.  But nothing does
turn up this Evening.  Tea, and a Walk on our River bank, and then, what
do you think?  An hour's reading (to me) of a very celebrated Murder
which I remember just thirty years ago at Norwich: then 'Ten minutes'
Refreshment'; and then, Nicholas Nickleby!  Then one Pipe: and then to
Bed.  Yours sincerely,

E. F. G.

This Letter shall sleep a night too before Travelling.  Next Morning.
Revenons a notre Crabbe.  'Principles and Pew' very bad.  'The Flowers,
etc., cut by busy hands, etc.,' are, or were, common on the leaden roofs
of old Houses, Churches, etc.  I made him stop at 'Till the Does ventured
on our Solitude,' {271} without adding '_We were so still_!'--which is
quite 'de trop.'  You will see by the enclosed prefatory Notice what I
have done in the matter, as little as I could in doing what was to be
done.  My own Copy is full of improvements.  Yes, for any Poetaster may
improve three-fourths of the careless old Fellow's Verse: but it would
puzzle a Poet to improve the better part.  I think that Crabbe differs
from Pope in this thing for one: that he aims at Truth, not at Wit, in
his Epigram.  How almost graceful he can sometimes be too!

   What we beheld in Love's perspective Glass
   Has pass'd away--one Sigh! and let it pass. {272}

LOWESTOFT.  _August_ 20/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

Mr. Norton wrote me that you had been detained in Spain by Mrs. Lowell's
severe, nay, dangerous, illness; a very great affliction to you.  I
venture a bit of a Letter, which you are not to answer, even by a word;
no, not even read further than now you have got, unless a better day has
dawned on you, and unless you feel wholly at liberty to write.  I should
be very glad to hear, in ever so few words, that your anxiety was over.

I do not think I shall make a long letter of this; for I do not think of
much that can amuse you in the least, even if you should be open to such
sort of amusement as I could give you.  I am come here to be a month with
my friend Cowell; he and I are reading the Second Part of Don Quixote
together, as we used to read together thirty years ago; he always the
Teacher, and I the Pupil, although he is quite unaware of that Relation
between us; indeed, rather reverses it.  It so happens that he is not so
well acquainted with this Second Part as with the First; indeed not so
well with the Story of it as I, but then he is so much a better Scholar
in all ways that he lights up passages of the Book in a way that is all
new to me.  Some of the strange words reminded me again of his wish for a
Spanish Dictionary in the style of Littre's French: he would assuredly be
the Man to do it, but he has his Sanskrit Professorship to mind.

There is a Book rather worth reading called 'On Foot through Spain';
{273} meaning, as much of Spain as extends from St. Sebastian on the Bay
of Biscay to Barcelona on the Mediterranean; with a good deal of
Cervantesque Ventas, Carreteros, etc., in it.  There is an account of the
Obsequies of PAU PI (Basque?) on the last Day of Carnival at Saragossa,
which reminded me of the 'Cortes de Muerte,' etc.  Hawthorne (whose
admirable Italian Journal I brought with me here) says that originally
the Italian Carnival ended with somewhat of the same Burlesque
Ceremonial, but was thought to mimic too Graciosoly that of the Church.  I
believe the Moccoli, etc., are a remainder of it.

'Eso alla se ha de entender, respondio Sancho, con los _que nacieron en
las malvas_' (II. c. 4), made my Master jump at once to Job XXX. 4.

I cannot but suppose that you are gradually gathering materials for some
Essay on Spanish Literature, and it is a rare Quality in these days to be
in no hurry about such work, but to wait till one can do it thoroughly;
as is the case with you.  I suppose you know Lope: of whom I have read,
and now shall read, nothing: even Cowell, who has read some, is not much
interested in him.  He delights in Calderon, of whom he has one thick
Volume here, and still finds many obscure passages to clear up.  He was
telling me of one about Madrid, {274} which (as you are now there) I must
quote by way of filling up this Second Sheet of Letter.  But, to do this,
I must wait till I have been with him for our morning's reading, so as I
may give it you Chapter and Verse.

P.S.  Here is my Professor's MS. note for you, which I told him I wanted
to send.  We have been reading Chapters 14-15 of Don Quixote, Second
Part.  Do you know why Carrasco finds an _Algebrista_ for his hurts?  Why
the Moorish _Aljebro_ = the setting of Fractions, etc.  So said my dear
Pundit at once.  Ah! you would like to be with us, for the sake of him,
rather than of yours sincerely E. F. G.

_To C. E. Norton_.

LOWESTOFT.  _Sept._ 3/79.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I must write you a few lines, on my knee (not, on my knees, however), in
return for your kind letter.  As to my thinking you could be
'importunate' in asking again for my two Sophocles Abstracts, you must
know that such importunity cannot but be grateful.  I am only rather
ashamed that you should have to repeat it.  I laid the Plays by after
looking them over some months ago, meaning to wait till another year to
clear up some parts, if not all.  Thus do my little works arrive at such
form as they result in, good or bad; so as, however I may be blamed for
the liberties I take with the Great, I cannot be accused of over haste in
doing so, though blamed I may be for rashness in meddling with them at
all.  Anyhow, I would not send you any but a fair MS. if I sent MS. at
all; and may perhaps print it in a small way, not to publish, but so as
to ensure a final Revision, such as will also be more fitting for you to
read.  It is positively the last of my Works! having been by me these
dozen years, I believe, occasionally looked at.  So much for that.

Now, you would like to be here along with me and my delightful Cowell,
when we read the Second Part of Don Quixote together of a morning.  This
we have been doing for three weeks; and shall continue to do for some ten
days more, I suppose: and then he will be returning to his Cambridge.  If
we read very continuously we should be almost through the Book by this
time: but, as you may imagine we play as well as work; some passage in
the dear Book leads Cowell off into Sanskrit, Persian, or Goody Two
Shoes, for all comes within the compass of his Memory and Application.
Job came in to the help of Sancho a few days ago: and the Duenna
Rodriguez' age brought up a story Cowell recollected of an old Lady who
persisted in remaining at 50; till being told (by his Mother) that she
could not be elected to a Charity because of not being 64, she said 'She
thought she could manage it'; and the Professor shakes with Laughter not
loud but deep, from the centre. . . .

Pray read in our Athenaeum some letters of Severn's about Keats, full of
Love and intelligent Admiration, all the better for coming straight from
the heart without any style at all.  If I thought that Mr. Lowell would
not find these Athenaeums somewhere in Madrid, I would send them to him,
as I would also to you in a like predicament. . . .

This letter has run on further than I expected: and I am now going to see
Sancho off to his Island, under convoy of my Professor.

_To S. Laurence_.

11 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Septr._ 22/79.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

Your letter found me here this morning: here, where I have now been near
six weeks, for a month of which Edward Cowell and his Wife were my
neighbours; and we had two or three hours of Don Quixote's company of a
morning, and only ourselves for company at night.  They are gone,
however; and I might have gone to my own home also, but that some Nephews
and Nieces wished to see a little more of me; and I thought also that
Lowestoft would be more amusing than Woodbridge to a young London Clerk,
a Nephew of the Cowells, who comes to me for a short Holyday, when he can
get away from his Desk.  But early in October I shall be back at my old
routine, stale enough.  I think that, as a general rule, people should
die at 70.

Yes: though Edwards was comparatively a Friend of late growth--he, and
his brave wife--they encountered me down in my own country here, and we
somehow suited one another; and I feel sad thinking of the pleasant days
at Dunwich, which the Tide now rolling up here will soon reach. {277} . . .

I am here re-reading Forster's Life of Dickens, which seems to me a very
good Book, though people say, I believe, there is too much Forster in it.
At any rate, there is enough to show the wonderful Daemonic Dickens: as
pure an instance of Genius as ever lived; and, it seems to me, a Man I
can love also.

_Sentence from a Letter written to Prof. Norton Feb._ 22/80.

'I cannot yet get the 2nd Part (Coloneus) to fit as I wish to the first:
finding (what I never doubted) that nothing is less true than Goethe's
saying that these two Plays and Antigone must be read in Sequence, as a
Trilogy.'

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _March_ 4, 1880.

MY DEAR NORTON,

Herewith you will receive, I suppose, Part I. of OEdipus, which I found
on my return here after a week's absence.  I really hope you will like
it, after taking the trouble more than once to ask for it: only
(according to my laudable rule of Give or Take in such cases) say no more
of it to me than to point out anything amendable: for which, you see, I
leave a wide margin, for my own behoof as well as my reader's.  And again
I will say that I wish you would keep it wholly to yourself: and, above
all, not let a word about it cross the Atlantic.  I will not send a Copy
even to Professor Goodwin, to whom you can show yours, if he should
happen to mention the subject; nor will I send one to Mrs. Kemble, the
only other whom I had thought of.  In short, you, my dear Sir, are the
only Depository of this precious Document, which I would have you keep as
though it were very precious indeed.

You will see at once that it is not even a Paraphrase, but an Adaptation,
of the Original: not as more adapted to an Athenian Audience 400 years
B.C. but to a merely English Reader 1800 years A.D.  Some dropt stitches
in the Story, not considered by the old Genius of those days, I have, I
think, 'taken up,' as any little Dramatist of these Days can do: though
the fundamental absurdity of the Plot (equal to Tom Jones according to
Coleridge!) remains; namely, that OEdipus, after so many years reigning
in Thebes as to have a Family about him, should apparently never have
heard of Laius' murder till the Play begins.  One acceptable thing I have
done, I think, omitting very much rhetorical fuss about the poor man's
Fatality, which I leave for the Action itself to discover; as also a good
deal of that rhetorical Scolding, which, I think, becomes tiresome even
in its Greek: as the Scene between OEdipus and Creon after Tiresias: and
equally unreasonable.  The Choruses which I believe are thought fine by
Scholars, I have left to old Potter to supply, as I was hopeless of
making anything of them; pasting, you see, his 'Finale' over that which I
had tried.

I believe that I must leave Part II. for the present, being rather
wearied with the present stupendous Effort, at AEtat. 71.  If I live
another year, and am still free from the ills incident to my Time, I will
make an end of it, and of all my Doings in that way.

_To Charles Keene_. {280a}

_Friday_.

MY DEAR KEENE,

. . . Beckford's Hunting is an old friend of mine: excellently written;
such a relief (like Wesley and the religious men) to the Essayist style
of the time.  Do not fail to read the capital Squire's Letter in
recommendation of a Stable-man, dated from Great Addington, Northants,
1734: of which some little is omitted after Edition I.; which edition has
also a Letter from Beckford's Huntsman about a wicked 'Daufter,' wholly
omitted.  This first Edition is a pretty small 4to 1781, with a
Frontispiece by Cipriani! . . .

If you come down this Spring, but not before May, I will show you some of
these things in a Book {280b} I have, which I might call 'Half Hours with
the Worst Authors,' and very fine things by them.  It would be the very
best Book of the sort ever published, if published; but no one would
think so but myself, and perhaps you, and half a dozen more.  If my Eyes
hold out I will copy a delightful bit by way of return for your Ballad.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_May_ 1, 1880.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I must thank you for the Crabbe Review {281} you sent me, though, had it
been your own writing, I should probably not tell you how very good I
think it.  I am somewhat disappointed that Mr. Woodberry dismisses
Crabbe's 'Trials at Humour' as summarily as Mr. Leslie Stephen does; it
was mainly for the Humour's sake that I made my little work: Humour so
evident to me in so many of the Tales (and Conversations), and which I
meant to try and get a hearing for in the short Preface I had written in
case the Book had been published.  I thought these Tales showed the
'stern Painter' softened by his Grand Climacteric, removed from the gloom
and sadness of his early associations, and looking to the Follies rather
than to the Vices of Men, and treating them often in something of a
Moliere way, only with some pathetic humour mixt, so as these Tales were
almost the only one of his Works which left an agreeable impression
behind them.  But if so good a Judge as Mr. Woodberry does not see all
this, I certainly could not have persuaded John Bull to see it: and
perhaps am wrong myself in seeing what is not there.  I doubt not that
Mr. Woodberry is quite right in what he says of Crabbe not having
Imagination to draw that Soul from Nature of which he enumerates the
phenomena: but he at any rate does so enumerate and select them as to
suggest something more to his Reader, something more than mere catalogue
could suggest.  He may go yet further in such a description, as that
other Autumnal one in 'Delay has Danger,' beginning--

   Early he rose, and look'd with many a sigh,
   On the red Light that fill'd the Eastern sky, etc.

Where, as he says, the Decay and gloom of Nature seem reflected in--nay,
as it were, to take a reflection from--the Hero's troubled Soul.  In the
Autumn Scene which Mr. Woodberry quotes, {282} and contrasts with those
of other more imaginative Poets, would not a more imaginative
representation of the scene have been out of character with the English
Country Squire who sees and reflects on it?  As would have been more
evident if Mr. W. had quoted a line or two further--

   While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees
   The Squire beheld not with his wonted ease,
   But to his own reflections made reply,
   And said aloud--'Yes, doubtless we must die.'

   [Greek text]--

This Dramatic Picture touches me more than Mr. Arnold.

One thing more I will say, that I do not know where old Wordsworth
condemned Crabbe as un-poetical (except in the truly 'priggish' candle
case) though I doubt not that Mr. Woodberry does know.  We all know that
of Crabbe's 'Village' one passage was one of the first that struck young
Wordsworth: and when Crabbe's son was editing his Father's Poems in 1834,
old Wordsworth wrote to him that, because of their combined Truth and
Poetry, those Poems would last as long at least as any that had been
written since, including Wordsworth's own.  And Wordsworth was too
honest, as well as too exclusive, to write so much even to a Son of the
dead Poet, without meaning all he said.

I should not have written all this were it not that I think so much of
Mr. Woodberry's Paper; but I doubt I could not persuade him to think more
of my old Man than he sees good to think for himself.  I rejoice that he
thinks even so well of the Poet: even if his modified Praise does not
induce others to try and think likewise.  The verses he quotes--

   Where is that virtue which the generous boy, etc. {283}

made my heart glow--yes, even out at my Eyes--though so familiar to me.
Only in my private Copy, instead of

   When Vice had triumph--_who his tear bestow'd_
   On injured merit--

in place of that '_bestowed Tear_,' I cannot help reading

   When Vice and Insolence in triumph rode, etc.

which is, of course, only for myself, and you, it seems: for I never
mentioned that, and some scores of such impudencies.

_To R. C. Trench_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_May_ 9/80.

MY DEAR LORD,

You are old enough, like myself, to remember People reading and talking
of Crabbe.  I know not if you did so yourself; but you know that no one,
unless as old as ourselves, does so now.  As he has always been one of my
Apollos, in spite of so many a cracked string, I wanted to get a few
others to listen a little as I did; and so printed the Volume which I
send you: printed it, not by way of improving, or superseding, the
original, but to entice some to read the original in all its length, and
(one must say) uncouth and wearisome '_longueurs_' and want of what is
now called 'Art.'  These Tales are perhaps as open to that charge as any
of his; and, moreover, not principally made up of that 'sternest' stuff
which Byron celebrated as being most characteristic of him.  When writing
these Tales, the Poet had reached his Grand Climacteric, and liked to
look on somewhat of the sunnier side of things; more on the Comedy than
the Tragedy of Human Life: and hence these Tales are, with all their
faults, the one work of his which leaves me (ten years past my Grand
Climacteric also) with a pleasant Impression.  So I tried to make others
think; but I was told by Friends whose Judgment I could trust that no
Public would listen to me. . . .  And so I paid for my printing, and kept
my Book to be given away to some few as old as myself, and brought up in
somewhat of another Fashion than what now reigns.  And so I now take
heart to send it to you whose Poems and Writings prove that you belong to
another, and, as I think, far better School, whether you care for Crabbe
or not.  I dare say you will feel bound to acknowledge the Book; but pray
do so, if at all, by a simple acknowledgment of its receipt; I mean, so
far as I am concerned in it: any word about Crabbe I shall be very glad
to have if you care to write it; but I always maintain it best to say
nothing, unless to find fault, with what is sent to one in this Book
Line.  And so to be done by.

_To Lord Houghton_. {285a}

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 10_th_ 1880. {285b}

DEAR LORD HOUGHTON,

I think I have sent you a yearly letter of some sort or other for several
years, so it has come upon me once again.  I have nothing to ask of you
except how you are.  I should just like to know that, including 'yours'
in you.  Just a very few words will suffice, and I daresay you have no
time for more.  I have so much time that it is evident I have nothing to
tell, except that I have just entered upon a military career in so far as
having become much interested in the battle of Waterloo, which I just
remember a year after it was fought, when a solemn anniversary took place
in a neighbouring parish where I was born, and the village carpenter came
to my father to borrow a pair of Wellington boots for the lower limbs of
a stuffed effigy of Buonaparte, which was hung on a gibbet, and guns and
pistols were discharged at him, while we and the parson of the parish sat
in a tent where we had beef and plum pudding and loyal toasts.  To this
hour I remember the smell of the new-cut hay in the meadow as we went in
our best summer clothes to the ceremony.  But now I am trying to
understand whether the Guards or the 52nd Regiment deserved most credit
for _ecraseing_ the Imperial Guard. {286}  Here is a fine subject to
address you on in the year 1880!  Let it go for nothing; but just tell me
how you are, and believe me, with some feeling of old, if not very close
intimacy,

Yours sincerely,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To R. C. Trench_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 18/80.

MY DEAR LORD,

I should have sent a line before now to thank you for your Calderon, had
I not waited for some tidings of Donne from Mowbray, to whom I wrote some
days ago.  Not hearing from him, I suppose that he is out holyday-making
somewhere; and therefore I will delay no longer.

You gave me your Calderon when it first came out, now some five and
twenty years ago!  I am always glad to know that it, or any of your
writings, Prose or Verse, still flourish--which I think not many others
of the kind will do after the Generation they are born in.  I remember
that you regretted having tried the asonante, and you now decide that
Prose is best for English Translation.  It may be so; in a great degree
it must be so; but I think the experiment might yet be tried; namely, the
short trochaic line, regardless of an assonant that will not speak in our
thin vowels, but looped up at intervals with a strong monosyllabic rhyme,
without which the English trochaic, assonant or not, is apt to fray out,
or run away too watery-like without some such interruption; I mean when
running to any considerable length, as I should think would be the case
in Longfellow's Hiawatha; which I have not however seen since it
appeared.  Were I a dozen years younger I might try this with Calderon
which I think I have found to succeed in some much shorter flights: but
it is too late now, and you may think it well that it is so, with one who
takes such great liberties with great Poets, himself pretending to be
little more than a Versifier.  I know not how it is with you who are
really a Poet; and perhaps you may think I am as wrong about my trochee
as about my iambic.

As for the modern Poetry, I have cared for none of the last thirty years,
not even Tennyson, except in parts: pure, lofty and noble as he always
is.  Much less can I endure the _Gurgoyle_ school (I call it) begun, I
suppose, by V. Hugo. . . .  I do think you will find something better
than that in the discarded Crabbe; whose writings Wordsworth (not given
to compliment any man on any occasion) wrote to Crabbe's Son and Editor
would continue as long at least as any Poetry written since, on account
of its mingled 'Truth and Poetry.'  And this includes Wordsworth's own.
So I must think my old Crabbe will come up again, though never to be
popular.

This reminds me that just after I had written to you, Crabbe's Grandson,
one of the best, most amiable, and most agreeable, of my friends, paid me
a two days' Visit, and told me that a Nephew of yours was learning to
farm with a Steward of Lord Walsingham at Merton in Norfolk, George
Crabbe's own parish; I mean the living George, who spoke of your Nephew
as a very gentlemanly young man indeed.  I think _he_ will not gainsay
what I write to you of his 'Parson.'

Your kind Letter has encouraged me to write all this.  I felt some
hesitation in addressing you again after an interval of some fifteen
years, I think; and now I think I shall venture on writing to you once
again before another year be gone, if we both live to see 1881 in, and
out.

_To Charles Keene_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Sunday_.

MY DEAR KEENE,

Your Letter reached me yesterday when I was just finishing my Sevigne; I
mean, reading it over.  I have plenty of Notes for an Introductory
Argument and List of Dramatis Personae, and a clue to the course of her
Letters, so as to set a new reader off on the right tack, with some
previous acquaintance with the People and Places she lives among.  But I
shrink from trying to put such Notes into shape; all writing always
distasteful to me, and now very difficult, at seventy odd.  Some such
Introduction would be very useful: people being in general puzzled with
Persons, Dates, etc., if not revolted by the eternal, though quite
sincere, fuss about her Daughter, which the Eye gradually learns to skim
over, and get to the fun.  I felt a pang when arriving at--

   Ci git
   Marie de Rabutin-Chantal
   Marquise de Sevigne
   Decedee le 18 Avril 1696

still to be found, I believe, on a Tablet in the Church of Grignan in
Provence.  I have been half minded to run over to Brittany just to see
Les Rochers; but a French 'Murray' informed me that the present owner
will not let it be seen by Strangers attracted by all those 'paperasses,'
as he calls her Letters.  Probably I should not have gone in any case
when it came to proof. . . .

I did not forget Waterloo Day.  Just as I and my Reader Boy were going
into the Pantry for some _grub_, I thought of young Ensign Leeke, not 18,
who carried the Colours of that famous 52nd which gave the 'coup de
grace' to the Imperial Guard about 8 p.m. and then marched to Rossomme,
seeing the Battle was won: and the Colour-serjeant found some bread in
some French Soldier's knapsack, and brought a bit to his Ensign, 'You
must want a bit, Sir, and I am sure you have deserved it.'  That was a
Compliment worth having!

I have, like you, always have, and from a Child had, a mysterious feeling
about that 'Sizewell Gap.'  There were reports of kegs of Hollands found
under the Altar Cloth of Theberton Church near by: and we Children looked
with awe on the 'Revenue Cutters' which passed Aldbro', especially
remembering one that went down with all hands, 'The Ranger.'

They have half spoilt Aldbro'; but now that Dunwich is crossed out from
my visiting Book by the loss of that fine fellow, {290} whom this time of
year especially reminds me of, I must return to Aldbro' now and then.  Why
can't you go there with me?  I say no more of your coming here, for you
ought to be assured that you would be welcome at any time; but I never do
ask any busy, or otherwise engaged man to come. . . .

Here is a good Warwickshire word--'I _sheered_ my Eyes round the room.'
So good, that it explains itself.

WHITE LION, ALDEBURGH.
_July_ 7/80.

MY DEAR KEENE,

I shall worry you with Letters: here is one, however, which will call for
no answer.  It is written indeed in acknowledgement of your packet of
Drawings, received by me yesterday at Woodbridge.

My rule concerning Books is, that Giver and Taker (each in his turn)
should just say nothing.  As I am not an Artist (though a very great
Author) I will say that Four of your Drawings seemed capital to me: I
cannot remember the Roundabouts which they initialed: except two: 1. The
lazy idle Boy, which you note as not being used; I suppose, from not
being considered sufficiently appropriate to the Essay (which I forget),
but which I thought altogether good; and the old Man, with a look of
Edwards!  2. Little Boy in Black, very pretty: 3. (I forget the Essay)
People looking at Pictures: one of them, the principal, surely a
recollection of W. M. T. himself.  Then 4. There was a bawling Boy:
subject forgotten.  I looked at them many times through the forenoon: and
came away here at 2 p.m.

I do not suppose, or wish, that you should make over to me all these
Drawings, which I suppose are the originals from which the Wood was cut.
I say I do not 'wish,' because I am in my 72nd year: and I now give away
rather than accept.  But I wished for one at least of your hand; for its
own sake, and as a remembrance, for what short time is left me, of one
whom I can sincerely say I regard greatly for himself, as also for those
Dunwich days in which I first became known to him.  'Viola qui est dit.'

And I wish you were here, not for your own sake, for it is dull enough.
No Sun, no Ship, a perpetual drizzle; and to me the melancholy of another
Aldbro' of years gone by.  Out of that window there 'le petit' Churchyard
sketched Thorpe headland under an angry Sunset of Oct. 55 which heralded
a memorable Gale that washed up a poor Woman with a Babe in her arms: and
old Mitford had them buried with an inscribed Stone in the old
Churchyard, peopled with dead 'Mariners'; and Inscription and Stone are
now gone.  Yesterday I got out in a Boat, drizzly as it was: but to-day
there is too much Sea to put off.  I am to be home by the week's end, if
not before.  The melancholy of Slaughden last night, with the same Sloops
sticking sidelong in the mud as sixty years ago!  And I the venerable
Remembrancer.

MY DEAR KEENE,

I ought to have acknowledged the receipt of your Paris map, which is
excellent; so that, eyes permitting, I can follow my Sevigne about from
her Rue St. Catherine over the Seine to the Faubourg St. Germain quite
distinctly.  These cold East winds, however, coming so suddenly after the
heat, put those Eyes of mine in a pickle, so as I am obliged to let them
lie fallow, looking only at the blessed Green of the Trees before my
Window, or on my Quarterdeck. {293}  My two Nieces are with me, so that I
leave all the house to them, except my one Room downstairs, which serves
for Parlour, Bedroom and all.  And it does very well for me; reminding me
of my former Cabin life in my little Ship 'd'autrefois.' . . .

Do not you forget (as you will) to tell Mr. Millais one day of the pretty
Subject I told you; little Keats standing sentry before his sick Mother's
Door with a drawn sword; in his Shirt it might be, with some Rembrandtish
Light and Shade.  The Story is to be found at the beginning of Lord
Houghton's Life.

Also, for any Painter you know of what they call the 'Genre' School:

Sevigne and the 'de Villars' looking through the keyhole at Mignard
painting Madame de Fontevrauld (Rochechouart) while the Abbe Tetu talks
to her (Letter of Sept. 6, 1675).  It might be done in two compartments,
with the wall slipt between, so as to show both Parties, as one has seen
on the Stage.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Nov._ 3, 1880.

MY DEAR NORTON,

. . . With all your knowledge, and all the use you can make of it, I
wonder that you can think twice of such things as I can offer you in
return for what you send me: but I take you at your word, and shall
perhaps send you the last half of OEdipus, if I can prepare him for the
Printer; a rather hard business to me now, when turned of seventy, and
reminded by some intimations about the Heart that I am not likely to
exceed the time which those of my Family have stopped going at.  But this
is no great Regret to me.

I have sent you a better Book than any I can send you of my own: or of
any one else's in the way of Verse, I think: the Sonnets of Alfred
Tennyson's Brother Charles.  Two thirds of them I do not care for: but
there is scarce one without some fine thought or expression: some of them
quite beautiful to me: all pure, true, and original.  I think you in
America may like these leaves from the Life of a quiet Lincolnshire
Parson.

. . . We have had the Leaves green unusually late this year, I think: but
so I have thought often before, I am told.  The last few nights have
brought Frost, however: and changed the countenance of all.  A Blackbird
(have you him as the 'ousel'?) whom I kept alive, I think, through last
hard winter by a saucer of Bread and Milk, has come to look for it again.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

_Nov._ 30, 1880.

One day I went into the Abbey at 3.5 p.m. while a beautiful anthem was
beautifully sung, and then the prayers and collects, not less beautiful,
well intoned on one single note by the Minister.  And when I looked up
and about me, I thought that Abbey a wonderful structure for Monkeys to
have raised.  The last night, Mesdames Kemble and Edwards had each of
them company, so I went into my old Opera House in the Haymarket, where I
remembered the very place where Pasta stood as Medea on the Stage, and
Rubini singing his return to his Betrothed in the Puritani, and Taglioni
floating everywhere about: and the several Boxes in which sat the several
Ranks and Beauties of forty and fifty years ago: my Mother's Box on the
third Tier, in which I often figured as a Specimen of both.  The Audience
all changed much for the worse, I thought: and Opera and Singers also;
only one of them who could sing at all, and she sang very well indeed;
Trebelli, her name.  The opera by a Frenchman on the Wagner plan:
excellent instrumentation, but not one new or melodious idea through the
whole.

_To W. H. Thompson_.

LITTLEGRANGE: WOODBRIDGE.
_Decr._ 15 [1880].

MY DEAR MASTER,

I have not written to you this very long while, simply because I did not
wish to trouble you: Aldis Wright will tell you that I have not neglected
to enquire about you.  I drew him out of Jerusalem Chamber for five
minutes three weeks ago: this I did to ask primarily about Mr. Furness on
behalf of Mrs. Kemble: but also I asked about you, and was told you were
still improving, and prepared to abide the winter here.  I saw nobody in
London except my two Widows, my dear old Donne, and some coeval Suffolk
Friends.  I was half tempted to jump into a Bus and just leave my name at
Carlyle's Door!  But I did not.  I should of course have asked and heard
how he was: which I can find no one now to tell me.  For his Niece has a
Child, if only one, to attend to, and I do not like to trouble.  I heard
from vague Information in London that he is almost confined to his house.

I have myself been somewhat bothered at times for the last three months
with pains and heaviness about the Heart: which I knew from a Doctor was
unsettled five years ago.  I shall not at all complain if it takes the
usual course, only wishing to avoid _Angina_, or some such form of the
Disease.  My Family get on gaily enough till seventy, and then generally
founder after turning the corner.

I hope you know Charles Tennyson's Sonnets; three times too many, and
some rather puerile: but scarce one but with something good in Thought or
Expression: all original: and some delightful: I think, to live with
Alfred's, and no one else's.  Old Fred might have made one of Three
Brothers, I think, could he have compressed himself into something of
Sonnet Compass: but he couldn't.  He says, Charles makes one regard and
love little things more than any other Poet.

My Nephew De Soyres seems to have made a good Edition of Pascal's
Letters: I should have thought they had been quite well enough edited
before; and yet a more 'exhaustive' Edition is to follow the House that
Jack built, he tells us.

Groome had proposed a month ago that he would visit me about this time:
but I have heard no more of him: and am always afraid to write, for fear
of those poor Eyes of his.

I was very glad to meet Merivale on Lowestoft Pier for some days.  Mrs.
M. writes to me of an enlarged Photo of him whose Negative will be
destroyed in a month unless subscribed for by Friends, etc.  'Will I ask
Friends, etc.'  No: I will not do that, though I will take a copy if
wanted to complete a number: though, if it be life size, having no where
to hang it up: my own Mother, by Sir T. Lawrence, being put away in a
cupboard for want of room.

Now, my dear Master, I want neither you nor the Mistress to reply to this
Letter: but please to believe me, both of you, yours as ever sincerely

E. FITZ.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _February_ 20, 1881.

MY DEAR NORTON,

. . . I have little to say about Carlyle, but that my heart did follow
him to Ecclefechan, from which place I have, or had, several letters
dated by him.  I think it was fine that he should anticipate all
Westminster Abbey honours, and determine to be laid where he was born,
among his own kindred, and with all the simple and dignified obsequies of
(I suppose) his own old Puritan Church.  The Care of his Posthumous
Memory will be left in good hands, I believe, if in those of Mr. Froude.
His Niece, who had not answered a Note of Enquiry I wrote her some two
months ago, answered it a few days after his Death: she had told him, she
said, of my letter, and he said, 'You must answer that.'

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_March_, 1881].

MY DEAR LADY,

It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding.
Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it happened,
he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days after the
accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even cheerful; only
anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting for some
communication that S. had promised him!  Whether to live, or to die, he
will be Socrates still.

Directly that I heard from Wright, I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me
just a Post Card daily, if he or his Wife could, with but one or two
words on it, 'Better,' 'Less well,' or whatever it might be.  This
morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be expected,
according to Miss Spedding.  But I suppose the Crisis, which you tell me
of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that French Adage,
'Monsieur se porte mal--Monsieur se porte mieux--Monsieur est--!'  Ah,
you know, or you guess, the rest.

My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and
more, and probably should never see again; but he lives, his old Self, in
my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the
recollection of him, if it could be embellished; for he is but the same
that he was from a Boy, all that is best in Heart and Head, a man that
would be incredible had one not known him.

I certainly should have gone up to London, even with Eyes that will
scarce face the lamps of Woodbridge, not to see him, but to hear the
first intelligence I could about him.  But I rely on the Post-card for
but a Night's delay.  Laurence, Mowbray tells me, had been to see him,
and found him as calm as had been reported by Wright.  But the Doctors
had said that he should be kept as quiet as possible.

I think, from what Mowbray also says, that you may have seen our other
old friend Donne in somewhat worse plight than usual because of his being
much shocked at this accident.  He would feel it indeed!--as you do.

I had even thought of writing to tell you all this, but could not but
suppose that you were more likely to know of it than myself; though
sometimes one is greatly mistaken with these 'of course you knows, etc.'
But you have known it all: and have very kindly written of it to me, whom
you might also have supposed already informed of it: but you took the
trouble to write, not relying on 'of course you know, etc.'

I have thought lately that I ought to make some enquiry about Arthur
Malkin, who was always very kind to me.  I had meant to send him my
Crabbe, who was a great favourite of his Father's, 'an excellent
Companion for Old Age' he told--Donne, I think.  But I do not know if I
ever did send him the Book; and now, judging by what you tell me, it is
too late to do so, unless for Compliment.

The Sun, I see, has put my Fire out, for which I only thank him, and will
go to look for him himself in my Garden, only with a Green Shade over my
Eyes.  I must get to London to see you before you move away to
Leamington; when I can bear Sun or Lamp without odious blue glasses, etc.
I dare to think those Eyes are better, though not Sun-proof.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _March_ 13, [1881].

MY DEAR NORTON,

I send you along with this Letter Part II. of OEdipus, with some
corrections or suggestions which I have been obliged to make in Pencil,
because of the Paper blotting under the lightest Penwork.  And, along
with it, a preliminary Letter, which I believe I told you of also,
addressed to your Initial: for I did not wish to compromise you even with
yourself in such a Business.  I know you will like it probably more than
it deserves, and excuse its inroads on the Original, though you may, and
probably will, think I might better have left it alone, or followed it
more faithfully.  As to those Students you tell me of who are meditating,
or by this time may have accomplisht, their Representation, they could
only look on me as a Blasphemer. . . .

It seems almost wrong or unreasonable of me to be talking thus of myself
and my little Doings, when not only Carlyle has departed from us, but
one, not so illustrious in Genius, but certainly not less wise, my dear
old Friend of sixty years, James Spedding: {302} whose name you will know
as connected with Lord Bacon.  To re-edit his Works, which did not want
any such re-edition, and to vindicate his Character which could not be
cleared, did this Spedding sacrifice forty years which he might well have
given to accomplish much greater things; Shakespeare, for one.  But
Spedding had no sort of Ambition, and liked to be kept at one long work
which he knew would not glorify himself.  He was the wisest man I have
known: not the less so for plenty of the Boy in him; a great sense of
Humour, a Socrates in Life and in Death, which he faced with all Serenity
so long as Consciousness lasted.  I suppose something of him will reach
America, I mean, of his Death, run over by a Cab and dying in St.
George's Hospital to which he was taken, and from which he could not be
removed home alive.  I believe that had Carlyle been alive, and but as
well as he was three months ago, he would have insisted on being carried
to the Hospital to see his Friend, whom he respected as he did few
others.  I have just got the Carlyle Reminiscences, which will take me
some little time to read, impatient as I may be to read them.  What I
have read is of a stuff we can scarce find in any other Autobiographer:
whether his Editor Froude has done quite well in publishing them as they
are, and so soon, is another matter.  Carlyle's Niece thinks, not quite.
She sent me a Pipe her Uncle had used, for Memorial.  I had asked her for
the Bowl, and an Inch of stem, of one of the Clay Pipes such as I had
smoked with him under that little old Pear Tree in his Chelsea garden
many an Evening.  But she sent me a small Meerschaum which Lady Ashburton
had given him, and which he used when from home.

_To S. Laurence_.

_March_ 13/81.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

It was very very good of you to think of writing to me at all on this
occasion: {303} much more, writing to me so fully, almost more fully than
I dared at first to read: though all so delicately and as you always
write.  It is over!  I shall not write about it.  He was all you say.

So I turn to myself!  And that is only to say that I am much as usual:
here all alone for the last six months, except a two days visit to London
in November to see Mrs. Kemble, who is now removed from Westminster to
Marshall Thompson's Hotel Cavendish Square: and Mrs. Edwards who is
naturally better and happier than a year ago, but who says she never
should be happy unless always at work.  And that work is taking off
impressions of yet another--and I believe last--batch of her late
Husband's Etchings.  I saw and heard nothing else than these two Ladies:
and some old Nurseys at St. John's Wood: and dear Donne, who was infirmer
than when I had seen him before, and, I hear, is infirmer still than when
I saw him last.

By the by, I began to think my own Eyes, which were blazed away by
Paraffin some dozen years ago, were going out of me just before
Christmas.  So for the two dreary months which followed I could scarce
read or write.  And as yet I am obliged to use them tenderly: only too
glad to find that they are better; and not quite going (as I hope) yet.  I
think they will light me out of this world with care.  On March 31 I
shall enter on my seventy-third year: and none of my Family reaches over
seventy-five.

When I was in London I was all but tempted to jump into a Cab and just
knock at Carlyle's door, and ask after him, and give my card, and--run
away. . . .

The cold wind will not leave us, and my Crocuses do not like it.  Still I
manage to sit on one of those Benches you may remember under the lee side
of the hedge, and still my seventy-third year approaches.

_To Miss Anna Biddell_.

_March_ 1881.

I can only say of Carlyle what you say; except that I do not find the
style 'tiresome' any more than I did his Talk: which it is, only put on
Paper, quite fresh, from an Individual Man of Genius, unlike almost all
Autobiographic Memoirs.  I doubt not that he wrote it by way of some
Employment, as well as (in his Wife's case) some relief to his Feelings.
. . .

I did not know that I should feel Spedding's Loss as I do, after an
interval of more than twenty years [since] meeting him.  But I knew that
I could always get the Word I wanted of him by Letter, and also that from
time to time I should meet with some of his wise and delightful Papers in
some Quarter or other.  He talked of Shakespeare, I am told, when his
Mind wandered.  I wake almost every morning feeling as if I had lost
something, as one does in a Dream: and truly enough, I have lost _him_.
'Matthew is in his Grave, etc.'

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[20 _March_, 1881.]

MY DEAR LADY,

I have let the Full Moon pass because I thought you had written to me so
lately, and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I would not call on
you so soon again.  Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has
made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly
concerned.  In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with
Tennyson in the May of 1835.  'Voila bien longtemps de ca!'  His Father
and Mother were both alive: he, a wise man, who mounted his Cob after
Breakfast and was at his Farm till Dinner at two; then away again till
Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but
always courteous and quite content with any company his Son might bring
to the house, so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would
have gone whether they let him or no.  But he had seen enough of Poets
not to like them or their Trade: Shelley, for a time living among the
Lakes: Coleridge at Southey's (whom perhaps he had a respect for--Southey
I mean); and Wordsworth whom I do not think he valued.  He was rather
jealous of 'Jem,' who might have done available service in the world, he
thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson
conning over the Morte d'Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which
helped to make up the two volumes of 1842.  So I always associate that
Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw.  Mrs. Spedding was a
sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night.  And
there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of
Miss La Creevy if you know of such a Person in Nickleby.

At the end of May we went to lodge for a week at Windermere, where
Wordsworth's new volume of Yarrow Revisited reached us.  W. was then at
his home: but Tennyson would not go to visit him: and of course I did
not: nor even saw him.

You have, I suppose, the Carlyle Reminiscences: of which I will say
nothing except that much as we outsiders gain by them, I think that, on
the whole, they had better have been kept unpublished, for some while at
least.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[1881.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Thank you for your kind Letter; which I forwarded, with its enclosure, to
Thompson, as you desired.

If Spedding's Letters, or parts of them, would not suit the Public, they
would surely be a very welcome treasure to his Friends.  Two or three
pages of Biography would be enough to introduce them to those who knew
him less long and less intimately than ourselves: and all who read would
be the better, and the happier, for reading them.

I am rather surprised to find how much I dwell upon the thought of him,
considering that I had not refreshed my Memory with the sight or sound of
him for more than twenty years.  But all the past (before that) comes
upon me: I cannot help thinking of him while I wake; and when I do wake
from Sleep, I have a feeling of something lost, as in a Dream, and it is
J. S. I suppose that Carlyle amused himself, after just losing his Wife,
with the Records he has left: what he says of her seems a sort of
penitential glorification: what of others, just enough in general: but in
neither case to be made public, and so immediately after his Decease. . . .
I keep wondering what J. S. would have said on the matter: but I
cannot ask him now, as I might have done a month ago. . . .

Dear old Jem!  His Loss makes one's Life more dreary, and 'en revanche'
the end of it less regretful.

_To Mrs. Alfred Tennyson_. {308a}

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 22, [1881].

MY DEAR MRS. TENNYSON,

It is very, very [good] of you to write to me, even to remember me.  I
have told you before why I did not write to any other of your Party, as I
might occasionally wish to do for the sake of asking about you all: the
task of answering my Letter was always left to you: and I did not choose
to put you to that trouble.  Laurence had written me some account of his
Visit to St. George's: all Patience: only somewhat wishful to be at home:
somewhat weary with lying without Book, or even Watch, for company.  What
a Man! as in Life so in Death, which, as Montaigne says, proves what is
at the bottom of the Vessel. {308b}  I had not seen him for more than
twenty years, and should never have seen him again, unless in the Street,
where Cabs were crossing!  He did not want to see me; he wanted nothing,
I think: but I was always thinking of him, and should have done till my
own Life's end, I know.  I only wrote to him about twice a year: he only
cared to answer when one put some definite Question to him: and I had
usually as little to ask as to tell.  I was thinking that, but for that
Cab, I might even now be asking him what I was to think of his Cousin
Froude's Carlyle Reminiscences.  I see but one Quotation in the Book,
which is 'of the Days that are no more,' which clung to him when his
Sorrow came, as it will to many and many who will come after him.

I certainly hope that some pious and judicious hand will gather, and
choose from our dear Spedding's Letters: no fear of indelicate
personality with him, you know: and many things which all the world would
be the wiser and better for.  Archdeacon Allen sent me the other day a
Letter about Darwin's Philosophy, so wise, so true, so far as I could
judge, and, though written off, all fit to go as it was into Print, and
do all the World good. {309} . . .

It was fine too of Carlyle ordering to be laid among his own homely
Kindred in the Village of his Birth: without Question of Westminster
Abbey.  So think I, at least.  And dear J. S. at Mirehouse where your
Husband and I stayed, very near upon fifty years ago, in 1835 it was, in
the month of May, when the Daffodil was out in a field before the house,
as I see them, though not in such force, owing to cold winds, before my
window now.  Does A. T. remember them?

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_April_, 1881.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Somewhat before my usual time, you see; but Easter comes, and I shall be
glad to hear if you keep it in London, or elsewhere.  Elsewhere there has
been no inducement to go until To-day: when the Wind though yet East has
turned to the Southern side of it; one can walk without any wrapper; and
I dare to fancy we have turned the corner of Winter at last.  People talk
of changed Seasons: only yesterday I was reading in my dear old Sevigne,
how she was with the Duke and Duchess of Chaulnes at their Chateau of
Chaulnes in Picardy all but two hundred years ago: that is in 1689: and
the green has not as yet ventured to shew its 'nez' nor a Nightingale to
sing.  You see that I have returned to her as for some Spring Music, at
any rate.  As for the Birds, I have nothing but a Robin who seems rather
pleased when I sit down on a Bench under an old Ivied Pollard, where I
suppose he has a Nest, poor little Fellow.  But we have terrible
Superstitions about him here; no less than that he always kills his
Parents if he can: my young Reader is quite determined on this head: and
there lately has been a Paper in some Magazine to the same effect.

My dear old Spedding sent me back to old Wordsworth too, who sings (his
best songs I think) about the Mountains and Lakes they were both
associated with: and with a quiet feeling he sings that somehow comes
home to me more now than ever it did before.

As to Carlyle, I thought on my first reading that he must have been
_egare_ at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying
to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into.
And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort.  Hers I
think an admirable Paper: {311} better than has yet been written, or (I
believe) is likely to be written by any one else. . . .  I must think
Carlyle's judgments mostly, or mainly, true; but that he must have 'lost
his head' if not when he recorded them, yet when he left them in any
one's hands to decide on their publication.  Especially when not about
Public Men, but about their Families.  It is slaying the Innocent with
the Guilty.  But of all this you have doubtless heard in London more than
enough.  'Pauvre et triste Humanite!'  One's heart opens again to him at
the last: sitting alone in the middle of her Room.  'I want to die.'  'I
want--a Mother.'  'Ah mamma Letizia!' Napoleon is said to have murmured
as he lay.  By way of pendant to this recurs to me the Story that when
Ducis was wretched his Mother would lay his head on her Bosom--'Ah, mon
homme! mon pauvre homme!' . . .

And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes
may be the worse for it to-morrow.  I still go about in Blue Glasses, and
flinch from Lamp and Candle.  Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and
your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours

LITTLEGRANGE.
_May_ 8, [1881].

If still at Leamington, you look upon a sight which I used to like well;
that is, the blue Avon (as in this weather it will be) roaming through
buttercup meadows all the way to Warwick; unless those meadows are all
built over since I was there some forty years ago. . . .

I am got back to my Sevigne! who somehow returns to me in Spring; fresh
as the Flowers.  These latter have done but badly this Spring: cut off or
withered by the Cold: and now parched up by this blazing Sun and dry
Wind.

_From another Letter in the same year_.

It has been what we call down here 'smurring' rather than raining, all
day long, and I think that Flower and Herb already show their gratitude.
My Blackbird (I think it is the same I have tried to keep alive during
the Winter) seems also to have 'wetted his Whistle,' and what they call
the 'Cuckoo's mate' with a rather harsh scissor note announces that his
Partner may be on the wing to these Latitudes.  You will hear of him at
Mr W. Shakespeare's, it may be. {313}  There must be Violets, white and
blue, somewhere about where he lies, I think.  They are generally found
in a Churchyard, where also (the Hunters used to say) a Hare: for the
same reason of comparative security I suppose.

_To Miss S. F. Spedding_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_July /81_.

. . . As I am so very little known to yourself, or your Mother, I did not
choose to trouble you with any of my own feelings about your Uncle's
Death.  But I am not sorry to take this opportunity of saying, and, I
know, truly, there was no one I loved and honoured more; that, though I
had not seen him for more than twenty years, I was always thinking of him
all the while: always feeling that I could apply to him for a wise word I
needed for myself; always knowing that I might light upon some wiser word
than any one else's in some Review, etc., and _now_ always thinking I
have lost all that.  I say that I have not known, no, nor heard of, any
mortal so prepared to step unchanged into the better world we are
promised--Intellect, and Heart, and such an outer Man to them as I
remember.

WOODBRIDGE: _July_ 31, [1881].

. . . I rejoice to hear of a Collection, or Reprint, of his stray works.
. . .  I used to say he wrote 'Virgilian Prose.'  One only of his I did
not care for; but that, I doubt not, was because of the subject, not of
the treatment: his own printed Report of a Speech he made in what was
called the 'Quinquaginta Club' Debating Society (not the Union) at
Cambridge about the year 1831.  This Speech his Father got him to recall
and recompose in Print; wishing always that his Son should turn his
faculties to such public Topics rather than to the Poets, of whom he had
seen enough in Cumberland not to have much regard for: Shelley, for one,
at one time stalking about the mountains, with Pistols, and other such
Vagaries.  I do not think he was much an Admirer of Wordsworth (I don't
know about Southey), and I well remember that when I was at M_e_rehouse
(as Miss Bristowe would have us call it) with A. Tennyson in 1835, Mr.
Spedding grudged his Son's giving up much time and thought to
consultations about Morte d'Arthur's, Lords of Burleigh, etc., which were
then in MS.  He more than once questioned me, who was sometimes present
at the meetings: 'Well, Mr. F., and what is it?  Mr. Tennyson reads, and
Jem criticizes:--is that it?' etc.  This, while I might be playing Chess
with dear Mrs. Spedding, in May, while the Daffodils were dancing outside
the Hall door.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _August_ 5/81.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I am sorry that you felt bound to write me so fully about the Play when,
as you tell me, you had so much other work on your hands.  Any how, do
not trouble yourself to write more.  If you think my Version does as
well, or better, without any introduction, why, tear that out; all,
except (if you like the Verse well enough to adopt it) the first sentence
of Dedication to yourself: adding your full name and Collegiate Honours
whenever you care so to do.

Your account of your Harvard original in the Atlantic Monthly was quite
well fitted for its purpose: a general account of it for the general
reader, without going into particulars which only the Scholar would
appreciate.

I believe I told you that thirty years ago at least I advised our
Trinity's Master, then only Greek Professor, to do the like with one of
the Greek Tragedies, in what they call their Senate-house, well fitted
for such a purpose.  But our Cambridge is too well fed, and slow to stir;
and I not important enough to set it a-going.

By the way, I have been there for two days; not having seen the place for
those same thirty years, except in passing through some ten years ago to
Naseby Field, for the purpose of doing Carlyle's will in setting up a
memorial Stone with his Inscription upon it.  But the present owners of
the Place would not consent: and so that simple thing came to nothing.

Well, I went again, as I say, to Cambridge a month ago; not in my way to
Naseby, but to my friend George Crabbe's (Grandson of my Poet) in
Norfolk.  I went because it was Vacation time, and no one I knew up
except Cowell and Aldis Wright.  Cowell, married, lives in pleasant
lodging with trees before and behind, on the skirts of the town; Wright,
in 'Neville's Court,' one side of which is the Library, all of Wren's
design, and (I think) very good.  I felt at home in the rooms there,
walled with Books, large, and cool: and I was lionized over some things
new to me, and some that I was glad to see again.  Now I am back again,
without any design to move; not even to my old haunts on our neighbouring
Sea-coast.  The inland Verdure suits my Eyes better than glowing sand and
pebble: and I suppose that every year I grow less and less desirous of
moving.

I will scarce touch upon the Carlyle Chapter: except to say that I am
sorry Froude printed the Reminiscences; at any rate, printed them before
the Life which he has begun so excellently in the 'Nineteenth Century'
for July.  I think one can surely see there that Carlyle might become
somewhat crazed, whether by intense meditation or Dyspepsy or both:
especially as one sees that his dear good Mother was so afflicted.  But
how beautiful is the Story of that home, and the Company of Lads
travelling on foot to Edinburgh; and the monies which he sends home for
the paternal farm: and the butter and cheese which the Farm returns to
him.  Ah! it is from such training that strength comes, not from
luxurious fare, easy chairs, cigars, Pall Mall Clubs, etc.  It has all
made me think of a very little Dialogue {317} I once wrote on the matter,
thirty years ago and more, which I really think of putting into shape
again: and, if I do, will send it to you, by way of picture of what our
Cambridge was in what I think were better days than now.  I see the
little tract is overdone and in some respects in bad taste as it is.  Now,
do not ask for this, nor mention it as if it were of any importance
whatsoever: it is not, but if pruned, etc., just a pretty thing, which
your Cambridge shall see if I can return to it.

By the by, I had meant to send you an emendation of a passage in my
Tyrannus which you found fault with.  I mean where OEdipus, after putting
out his eyes, talks of seeing those in Hades he does not wish to see.  I
knew it was not Greek: but I thought that a note would be necessary to
explain what the Greek was: and I confess I do not care enough for their
Mythology for that.  But, if you please, the passage (as I remember it)
might run:

               Eyes, etc.,
   Which, having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
   Should never by the light of day behold
   Those whom he loved, nor in the after-dark
   Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.

All this has run me into a third _screed_, you see: a word we used at
School, only calling it '_screet_'--'I say, do lend me a screet of
paper,' meaning, a quarter of a foolscap sheet.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Jan._ 18/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

At last I took heart, and Eyes, to return to the OEdipus of this time
last year; and have left none of your objections unattended to, if not
all complied with.  Not but that you may be quite as right in objecting
as I in leaving things as they were: but as I believe I said (right or
wrong) a little obscurity seems to me not amiss in certain places,
provided enough is left clear, I mean in matter of Grammar, etc.  But I
see that you have good reason to object in other cases: and, on looking
at the Play again, I also discover more, too many perhaps to have heart
or Eyes to devote to their rectification.  The Paper on which the second
Part is printed will not endure Ink, which also daunts me: nevertheless,
I send you a Copy pencilled, rather than references and alterations
written by way of Letter: I hope the least trouble to you of either
Alternative. . . .

I scarcely know what I have written, but I know it must be bad MS.; all
which I ought in good manners to rectify, or re-write.  I think you in
America think more of Calligraphy than we here do: a really polite
accomplishment, I always maintain: and yet 'deteriora sequor.'  But you
know that my eyes are not very active: and now my hand is less than
usually so, possessed as I am with a Devil of a Chill (in spite, or in
consequence, of warm wet weather) attended with something of Bronchitis,
I think. . . .

I forget if I told you in my last of my surprising communication with the
Spanish Ambassador who sent me the Calderon medal, I doubt not at Mr.
Lowell's instance.  But I think I must have told you.  Cowell came over
to me here on Monday: he, to whom a Medal is far more due than to me;
always reading, and teaching, Calderon at Cambridge now (as he did to me
thirty years ago), in spite of all his Sanskrit Duties.  I wish I could
send him to you across the Atlantic, as easily as Arbuthnot once bid Pope
'toss Johnny Gay' to him over the Thames.  Cowell is greatly delighted
with Ford's '_Gatherings in Spain_,' a Supplement to his Spanish
Handbook, and in which he finds, as I did, a supplement to Don Quixote
also.  If you have not read, and cannot find, the Book, I will toss it
over the Atlantic to you, a clean new Copy, if that be yet procurable, or
my own second-hand one in default of a new. . . .

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_Jan._ 1882.]

I see my poor little Aconites--'New Year's Gifts'--still surviving in the
Garden-plot before my window: 'still surviving,' I say, because of their
having been out for near a month agone.  I believe that Messrs. Daffodil,
Crocus and Snowdrop are putting in appearance above ground, but (old
Coward) I have not put my own old Nose out of doors to look for them.  I
read (Eyes permitting) the Correspondence between Goethe and Schiller
(translated) from 1798 to 1806, extremely interesting to me, though I do
not understand, and generally skip, the more purely AEsthetic Parts:
which is the Part of Hamlet, I suppose.  But in other respects, two such
men so freely discussing together their own, and each other's, works
interest me greatly.  At night, we have the Fortunes of Nigel; a little
of it, and not every night: for the reason that I do not wish to eat my
Cake too soon.  The last night but one I sent my Reader to see Macbeth
played by a little Shakespearian company at a Lecture Hall here.  He
brought me one new Reading; suggested, I doubt not by himself, from a
remembrance of Macbeth's tyrannical ways: 'Hang out our _Gallows_ on the
outward walls.'  Nevertheless, the Boy took great Interest in the Play,
and I like to encourage him in Shakespeare rather than in the Negro
Melodists.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Jan._ 25/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I forgot in my last letter to beg you not to write for the mere purpose
of acknowledging the revised OEdipus who was to travel along with it.  You
know that I am glad to hear from you at any time when you are at leisure,
not otherwise; and I shall take for granted that you think my alterations
are improvements, so far as they go.  And that is enough.

I herewith enclose you a sort of Choral Epilogue for the second Part,
which you can stick in or not as you will.  I cannot say much for it: but
it came together in my head after last writing to you, while I was pacing
up and down a Landing-place in my house, to which I have been confined
for the last ten days by a Bronchial Cold.  But for which I should have
been last week in London for the purpose of seeing a very dear old,
coaevally old, Friend, {322} who has been gradually declining in Body and
Mind for the last three years.

Yours always sincerely
LITTLEGRANGE.

_To W. A. Wright_.

_Friday_ [24 _February_ 1882].

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

I went to London this day week: saw my poor Donne (rather better than I
had expected to find him--but all declining) three times: and came
home--glad to come home!--on Monday.  Mrs. Kemble, Edwards (Keene at the
latter Lady's) and my old Nursey friends, all I saw beside, in the human
way, save Streetfarers, Cabmen, etc.  The Shops seemed all stale to me:
the only Exhibition I went to (Old Masters) ditto.  So I suppose that I
have lost my Appetite for all but dull Woodbridge Life.  I have not lost
my Cold--nor all its bronchial symptoms; but may do so--as I get a little
older.

Tennyson was in London, I heard: but in some grand Locality of Eaton
Square; so I did not venture down to him.  But a day scarcely passes
without my thinking of him, in one way or other.

Browning told Mrs. Kemble he knew there was 'a grotesque side' to his
Society, etc., but he could not refuse the kind solicitations of his
Friends, Furnivall and Co.  Mrs. K. had been asked to join: but declined,
because of her somewhat admiring him; nay, much admiring what he might
have done.

I enclose a note from Keene which appeals to you: I suppose that his
'fastous' means 'festuous,' or what is now called in Music 'Pompous.'
Charles' 'plump bass' is good. {323}

You had a bad cold when last you wrote: so you can tell me, if you
please, that you have shaken it off, as your Seniors cannot so easily do.
Let me know, of course, how the Master is, and give him my Love.  Does he
know of Musurus Pasha's Translation of Dante's Inferno into Modern Greek?
I was so much interested in it from the Academy that I bought; and, so
far as I have seen through uncut leaves, do not repent of having done so.

The Academy also announced that an MS. account of Carlyle's Visit to
Ireland in 1849 was in Froude's hands for the Press.  As T. C. stayed
some, if not the greater part of his time there at the country house of
my Uncle's Widow, I can only hope that he did not jot down much to offend
her surviving Children.  Perhaps not: for they were, and are, all of them
(Mother dead) quite unpretending people, and T. C. himself not then so
savage as after his Wife's death.  From Froude no mercy of reticence can
be expected.

You left here Rabisha {324a} and Groome's Book of Tracts {324b}: unless
you will be coming this way before long, I will send them to you.

You did not say whether you would undertake to look over Borrow's Books
and MSS., and I write his Step-daughter to that effect.  But I hope you
will find it not inconvenient or unpleasant so to do: and am yours always

LITTLEGRANGE.

My Boy went to Macbeth at our Lecture Hall.  What do you say to his
reading 'Hang out our Gallows on the outward Walls'?

_To H. Schutz Wilson_.

[1 _March_, 1882.]

MY DEAR SIR,

I must thank you sincerely for your thoughts about Salaman, in which I
recognize a good will toward the Translator, as well as liking for his
work.

Of course your praise could not but help that on: but I scarce think that
it is of a kind to profit so far by any review as to make it worth the
expense of Time and Talent you might bestow upon it.  In Omar's case it
was different: he sang, in an acceptable way it seems, of what all men
feel in their hearts, but had not had exprest in verse before: Jami tells
of what everybody knows, under cover of a not very skilful Allegory.  I
have undoubtedly improved the whole by boiling it down to about a Quarter
of its original size; and there are many pretty things in it, though the
blank Verse is too Miltonic for Oriental style.

All this considered, why did I ever meddle with it?  Why, it was the
first Persian Poem I read, with my friend Edward Cowell, near on forty
years ago: and I was so well pleased with it then (and now think it
almost the best of the Persian Poems I have read or heard about), that I
published my Version of it in 1856 (I think) with Parker of the Strand.
When Parker disappeared, my unsold Copies, many more than of the sold,
were returned to me; some of which, if not all, I gave to little
Quaritch, who, I believe, trumpeted them off to some little profit: and I
thought no more of them.

But some six or seven years ago that Sheikh of mine, Edward Cowell, who
liked the Version better than any one else, wished it to be reprinted.  So
I took it in hand, boiled it down to three-fourths of what it originally
was, and (as you see) clapt it on the back of Omar, where I still
believed it would hang somewhat of a dead weight; but that was Quaritch's
look-out, not mine.  I have never heard of any notice taken of it, but
just now from you: and I believe that, say what you would, people would
rather have the old Sinner alone.  Therefore it is that I write all this
to you.  I doubt not that any of your Editors would accept an Article
from you on the Subject, but I believe also they would much prefer one on
many another Subject: and so probably with the Public whom you write for.

Thus 'liberavi animam meam' for your behoof, as I am rightly bound to do
in return for your Goodwill to me.

As to the publication of my name, I believe I could well dispense with
it, were it other and better than it is.  But I have some unpleasant
associations with it: not the least of them being that it was borne,
Christian and Surname, by a man who left College just when I went there.
{326} . . .  What has become of him I know not: but he, among other
causes, has made me dislike my name, and made me sign myself (half in
fun, of course), to my friends, as now I do to you, sincerely yours

(THE LAIRD OF) LITTLEGRANGE,

where I date from.

_To C. E. Norton_.

_March_ 7, [1882].

MY DEAR NORTON,

You will receive by Post a volume of Translation of Dante's Inferno by
Musurus Pasha into Modern Greek.  I was so much interested in a quotation
from it in our 'Academy' that I bought it for myself, and subsequently
thought that a copy might be acceptable to you, loving both Greek and
Dante as you do.  Had not I bidden the London Publishers to send it
direct to you, I should have written your name and my own on the
fly-leaf.  But you can do this for us both.

I have not as yet read much of it: for my Eyes are impatient of the Greek
letter; but the Language comes out before me as the worthiest
representative of the Italian: provided it be pronounced as we have
learned to pronounce it, not as the modern Greek man is said to do.  I
always maintain that a Language is apt to sound better from a Foreigner,
who idealises the pronunciation.  As to the structure of the language, I
doubt that I may prefer the modern to the ancient because of being
cleared of many [Greek text], etc., particles.  I think I shall send a
Copy to Professor Goodwin.  This is nearly all that I have to send across
the Atlantic to-day, which reminds me that I have just been quoting (in a
little thing {327} I may send you),

         The fleecy Star that bears
   Andromeda far off Atlantic Seas.

What a Line!

. . . It is, I think, worth your while to look at Dean Stanley's Volume
of Bishop Thirlwall's Letters; nay, even Dean Perowne's earlier volume,
if but to show how the pedantic Boy grew into the large-hearted Man, and
even Bishop: but, from the first, always sincere, just, and not
pretentious.  I remember him at Cambridge: he, Fellow and Tutor, and I
undergraduate: and he took a little fancy to me, I think.

_To Hallam Tennyson_. {328}

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 28 [1882].

MY DEAR HALLAM,

I believe I ought to be ashamed of reviving the little thing which
accompanies this Letter.  My excuse must be that I have often been askt
for a copy when I had no more to give; and a visit to Cambridge last
summer, to the old familiar places, if not faces, made me take it up once
more and turn it into what you now see.  I should certainly not send a
copy to you, or yours, but for what relates to your Father in it.  He did
not object, so far as I know, to what I said of him, though not by name,
in a former Edition; but there is more of him in this, though still not
by name, nor, as you see, intended for Publication.  All of this you can
read to him, if you please, at pp. 25 and 56.  I do not ask him to say
that he approves of what is said, or meant to be said, in his honour; and
I only ask you to tell me if he disapproves of its going any further.  I
owed you a letter in return for the kind one you sent me; and, if I do
not hear from you to the contrary, I shall take silence, if not for
consent, at least not for prohibition.  I really did, and do, wish my
first, which is also my last, little work to record, for a few years at
least, my love and admiration of that dear old Fellow, my old Friend.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _June_ 9/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I told you, I think, but I scarce know when, that I would send you a very
little Tract of mine written forty years ago; and reformed into its
present shape in consequence of copies being askt for when I had none to
give.  So a few days at Cambridge last Summer, among the old places,
though not faces, set me off.  'Et voila qui est fait,' and posted to you
along with this Letter, together with a Copy for Professor Goodwin.  The
first and last of my little works: and I do think a pretty specimen of
'chisell'd Cherry-stone.'  Having which opinion myself, I more than ever
deprecate any word of praise from any to whom I send it.  Nay, I even
assume beforehand that you will like it too: and Professor Goodwin also
(so do not let him write): as my little tribute to my own old Cambridge
sent to you in your new.  I think I shall send it to Mr. Lowell too.  So
you see that I need no compliment, no, nor even acknowledgment of it. . . .

And now here is enough written.  And yet I will enclose some pretty
Verses, {330a} some twenty years old, which I sent to 'Temple Bar,' which
repaid me (as I deserved) with a dozen copies.  And I am always truly
yours

LITTLEGRANGE THE LAIRD.

Longfellow and Emerson! {330b}

WOODBRIDGE.  _July_ 13/82.

MY DEAR NORTON,

Here is a speedy reply to your kind Letter.  For I wish to say at once
that when Froude has done what he wants with my Carlyle Papers, you shall
have them to do the like.  He thought (as I anticipated) that he could
use but two or three of the Letters, as you will also guess from the
scheme and compass of his Biography, as given in the Letter which I
enclose along with this; but, as I bade him use what he saw good, and
keep the Papers as long as convenient to him, I cannot as yet ask him,
how much, nor how long.  When I think I may properly do so, I will: and
shall be very glad that you should have them under like conditions.  You
know that they chiefly concern Naseby, which might do for an Episode, or
separate Item, in your Book, though not for Froude's; I should also think
the Letters about that Squire business would be well to clear somewhat
up: but that can scarcely be done unless by vindicating Squire's honesty
at the expense of his sanity: and, as I have no reason to suppose but he
is yet alive, I know not how this can be decently done.  Froude says he
cannot see his way into the truth further than Carlyle's printed Article
on the subject goes: but I think Carlyle must have told him his
conviction (whatever it was) some time during their long acquaintance.
Perhaps, however, he was too sick of what he thought an unimportant
controversy to endure any more talk about it.  I am convinced, as from
the first, that Squire's story was true; and the fragments of Cromwell's
despatches genuine, though (as Critics pointed out) partially misquoted
by a scatter-brained fellow, ignorant of the subject, and of the Writer.

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_August_ 1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have let the Full Moon go by, and very well she looked too, over the
Sea by which I am now staying.  Not at Lowestoft; but at the old
extinguished Borough of Aldeburgh, to which as to other 'premiers Amours'
I revert: where more than sixty years ago I first saw, and first felt,
the Sea; where I have lodged in half the houses since; and where I have a
sort of traditional acquaintance with half the population: Clare Cottage
is where I write from; two little rooms, enough for me; a poor civil
woman pleased to have me in them. . . .

The Carlyle 'Reminiscences' had long indisposed me from taking up the
Biography.  But when I began, and as I went on with that, I found it one
of the most interesting of Books: and the result is that I not only
admire and respect Carlyle more than ever I did: but even love him, which
I never thought of before.  For he loved his Family, as well as for so
long helped to maintain them out of very slender earnings of his own;
and, so far as these two volumes show me, he loved his wife also, while
he put her to the work which he had been used to see his own Mother and
Sisters fulfil, and which was suitable to the way of Life which he had
been used to.  His indifference to her sufferings seems to me rather
because of Blindness than Neglect; and I think his Biographer has been a
little too hard upon him on the Score of selfish disregard of her.

ALDEBURGH.  _Sept._ 1. [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Still by the Sea, from which I saw The Harvest Moon rise for her three
nights' Fullness.  And to-day is so wet that I shall try and pay you my
plenilunal due, not much to your satisfaction; for the Wet really gets
into one's Brain and Spirits, and I have as little to write of as ever
any Full Moon ever brought me.  And yet, if I accomplish my letter, and
'take it to the Barber's' where I sadly want to go, and after being
wrought on by him, post my letter, why, you will, by your Laws, be
obliged to answer it.  Perhaps you may have a little to tell me of
yourself in requital for the very little you have to hear of me.

I have made a new Acquaintance here.  Professor Fawcett (Postmaster
General, I am told) married a daughter of one Newson Garrett of this
Place, who is also Father of your Doctor Anderson.  Well, the Professor
(who was utterly blinded by the Discharge of his Father's Gun some twenty
or five and twenty years ago) came to this Lodging to call on Aldis
Wright; and, when Wright was gone, called on me, and also came and smoked
a Pipe one night here.  A thoroughly unaffected, unpretending, man: so
modest indeed that I was ashamed afterwards to think how I had harangued
him all the Evening, instead of getting him to instruct me.  But I would
not ask him about his Parliamentary Shop: and I should not have
understood his Political Economy: and I believe he was very glad to be
talked to instead, about some of those he knew, and some whom I had
known.  And, as we were both in Crabbe's Borough, we talked of him: the
Professor, who had never read a word, I believe, about him, or of him,
was pleased to hear a little; and I advised him to buy the Life written
by Crabbe's Son; and I would give him my abstract of the Tales of the
Hall, by way of giving him a taste of the Poet's self.

Yes; you must read Froude's Carlyle above all things, and tell me if you
do not feel as I do about it. . . .  I regret that I did not know what
the Book tells us while Carlyle was alive; that I might have loved him as
well as admired him.  But Carlyle never spoke of himself in that way.  I
never heard him advert to his Works and his Fame, except one day he
happened to mention 'About the time when Men began to talk of me.'

WOODBRIDGE.  _Oct._ 17, [1882].

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I suppose that you are returned from the Loire by this time; but as I am
not sure that you have returned to the 'Hotel des Deux Mondes' whence you
dated your last, I make bold once more to trouble Coutts with adding your
Address to my Letter.  I think I shall have it from yourself not long
after.  I shall like to hear a word about my old France, dear to me from
childish associations, and in particular of the Loire, endeared to me by
Sevigne; for I never saw the glimmer of its waters myself. . . .

It seems to me (but I believe it seems so every year) that our trees keep
their leaves very long; I suppose, because of no severe frosts or winds
up to this time.  And my garden still shows some Geranium, Salvia,
Nasturtium, Great Convolvulus, and that grand African Marigold whose
Colour is so comfortable to us Spanish-like Paddies.  I have also a dear
Oleander which even now has a score of blossoms on it, and touches the
top of my little Green-house; having been sent me when 'haut comme ca,'
as Marquis Somebody used to say in the days of Louis XIV.  Don't you love
the Oleander?  So clean in its leaves and stem, as so beautiful in its
flower; loving to stand in water which it drinks up so fast.  I rather
worship mine.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _October_ 20/82.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Pray let me hear how you and yours are after your Summer Holyday.  I have
been no further for mine than Aldeburgh, an hour's Rail distance from
here: there I got out boating, etc., and I think became the more hearty
in consequence: but my Bosom friend Bronchitis puts in a reminder every
now and then, and, I suppose, will come out of his Closet, or Chest, when
Winter sets in. . . .

When I was at Aldeburgh, Professor Fawcett . . . came to see Aldis Wright
who was with me there for a Day.  When Wright was gone, the Professor
came to smoke a Pipe (in his case a Cigar) with me.  What a brave,
unpretending Fellow!  I should never have guessed that a notable man in
any way.  'Brave' too I say because of his cheerful Blindness; for which
I should never have forgiven my Father and his Gun.  To see him stalking
along the Beach, regardless of Pebble and Boulder, though with some one
by his side to prevent his going quite to Sea!  He was on the Eve of
starting for Scotland--to fish--in the dear Tweed, I think; though he
scarce seemed to know much of Sir Walter.

_To S. Laurence_.

LITTLEGRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_Nov._ 8/82.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

It is long since I have heard from you: which means, long since I have
written to you.  But do not impute this to as long forgetfulness on my
part.  My days and years go on one so like another: I see and hear no new
thing or person; and to tell you that I go for a month or a week to our
barren coast, which is all the travel I have to tell of, you can imagine
all that as easily as my stay at home, with the old Pictures about me,
and often the old Books to read.  I went indeed to London last February
for the sole purpose of seeing our Donne: and glad am I to have done so
as I heard it gave him a little pleasure.  That is a closed Book now.  His
Death {337} was not unexpected, and even not to be deprecated, as you
know; but I certainly never remember a year of such havock among my
friends as this: if not by Death itself, by Death's preliminary work and
warning. . . .  I wonder to find myself no worse dealt with than by
Bronchitis, bad enough, which came upon me last Christmas, hung upon me
all Spring, Summer, and Autumn; and though comparatively dormant for the
last three wet weeks (perhaps from repeated doses of Sea Air) gives
occasional Signs that it is not dead, but, on the contrary, will revive
with Winter.  Let me hear at least how you have been, and how are; I
shall not grudge your being all well.

Aldis Wright has sent me a very fine Photo of Spedding done from one of
Mrs. Cameron's of which a copy is at Trinity Lodge.  It is so fine that I
scarce know if it gives me more pleasure or pain to look at it.  Insomuch
that I keep it in a drawer, not yet able to make up my mind to have it
framed and so hung up before me.

My good old Housekeeper has been (along with so many more) very ill,
bedded for five or six weeks; only now able to get about again.  I have
this morning been scolding her for sending away a woman who came to do
her work, without consulting me beforehand: she makes out that the woman
wanted to go: I find the woman is very ready to return.  'These are my
troubles, Mr. Wesley,' as a Gentleman said to him when the Footman had
put too much coal on the fire.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

WOODBRIDGE.  [1882.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . The Book which has really, and deeply, interested me, and quite
against Expectation, is Froude's Carlyle Biography; which has (quite
contrary to expectation also) not only made me honour Carlyle more, but
even love him, which I had never taken into account before.  In the
Biography, Froude seems to me to treat his man with Candour and Justice:
even a little too severe in attributing to systematic Selfishness what
seems to me rather unreflecting neglect, Carlyle's relations to his Wife,
whom, so far as we read, he loved.  Of his Love for his own Family, his
Generosity to them, and his own sturdy refusal of help from others, one
cannot doubt.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Dec._ 20, [1882].

MY DEAR NORTON,

. . . You may have read somewhere of an 'Ajax' at our Cambridge over
here.  Thirty years ago did I tell the Greek Professor (now Master of
Trinity), 'Have a Greek Tragedy in (what you call) your Senate-house.'
But I was not sufficiently important to stir up the 'Dons.'  Cowell
invited me to see and hear 'Ajax'; but I remained here, content to snuff
at it from the Athenaeum of England, not of Attica.  And on the very day
that Ajax fretted his hour on the stage, my two old Housekeepers were
celebrating their Fiftieth, or Golden, wedding over a Bottle of Port wine
in the adjoining room, though in that happier Catastrophe I did not
further join.

Now, to end with myself; I have hitherto escaped any severe assault from
my 'Bosom-Enemy,' Bronchitis, though he occasionally intimates that he is
all safe in his Closet, and will reappear with the Butterflies, I dare
say.  'Dici Beatus' let no one in this country boast till May be over.

   What you put off, and what you put on,
   Never change till May be gone,

says an old Suffolk Proverb concerning our Clothing.  Five of my friendly
contemporaries have been struck with Paralysis during this 1882: and here
am I with only Bronchitis to complain of.

WOODBRIDGE.  _March_ 7/83.

MY DEAR NORTON,

I wrote to you some little while before Christmas, praying you, among
other things, not to put yourself to the trouble of sending me your
Emerson-Carlyle Correspondence, inasmuch as I could easily get it over
here; and, by way of answer, your two Volumes reached me yesterday, safe
and sound from over the Atlantic.  I had not time (a strange accident
with me) to acknowledge the receipt of them yesterday: but make all speed
to do so, with all gratitude, to-day.  As you are simply the Editor of
the Book, I may tell you something of my thoughts on it by and by.  I
doubt not that I shall find Emerson's Letters the more interesting,
because the newer, to me.  The Portrait at the head of Vol. II. assures
me that one will find only what is good in them.

. . . I was glad to find from Mozley's Oriel Reminiscences that Newman
had been an admirer of my old Crabbe; and Mr. L. Stephen has very kindly
written out for me a passage from some late work, or Lecture, of Newman's
own, in which he says that, after fifty years, he read 'Richard's Story
of his Boyhood,' in the Tales of the Hall, with the same delight as on
its first appearance, and he considers that a Poem which thus pleases in
Age as it pleased in Youth must be called (in the 'accidental' sense of
the word, logically speaking) 'Classical.'

I owe this Courtesy on Mr. Stephen's part to my having sent him a little
Preface to my Crabbe, in which I contested Mr. Stephen's judgment as to
Crabbe's Humour: and I did not choose to publish this without apprizing
him, whom I know so far as he is connected with the Thackerays.  He
replied very kindly, and sent me the Newman quotation I tell you of.  The
Crabbe is the same I sent you some years ago: left in sheets, except the
few Copies I sent to friends.  And now I have tacked to it a little
Introduction, and sent forty copies to lie on Quaritch's counter: for I
do not suppose they will get further.  And no great harm done if they
stay where they are. . . .

One day you must write, and tell me how you and yours have fared through
this winter.  It has been a very mild, even, a warm, one over here; and I
for my part have not yet had much to complain of in point of health thus
far; no, not even though winter has come at last in Snow and Storm for
the last three days.  I do not know if we are yet come to the worst, so
terrible a Gale has been predicted, I am told, for the middle of March.
Yesterday morning I distinctly heard the sea moaning some dozen miles
away; and to-day, why, the enclosed little scrap, {342} enclosed to me,
will tell you what it was about, on my very old Crabbe's shore.  It (the
Sea) will assuredly cut off his old Borough from the Slaughden River-quay
where he went to work, and whence he sailed in the 'Unity' Smack (one of
whose Crew is still alive) on his first adventure to London.  But all
this can but little interest you, considering that we in England (except
some few in this Eastern corner of it) scarce know more of Crabbe and his
where about than by name.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[_Easter_, 1883].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . Professor Norton sent me his Carlyle-Emerson--all to the credit of
all parties, I think.  I must tell the Professor that in my opinion he
should have omitted some personal observations which are all fair in a
private letter; as about Tennyson being of a 'gloomy' turn (which you
know is not so), Thackeray's 'enormous appetite' ditto; and such mention
of Richard Milnes as a 'Robin Redbreast,' etc.; which may be less untrue,
though not more proper to be published of a clever, useful, and amiable
man, now living.

_To C. E. Norton_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _May_ 12/83.

MY DEAR NORTON,

Your Emerson-Carlyle of course interested me very much, as I believe a
large public also.  I had most to learn of Emerson, and that all good:
but Carlyle came out in somewhat of a new light to me also.  Now we have
him in his Jane's letters, as we had seen something of him before in the
Reminiscences: but a yet more tragic Story; so tragic that I know not if
it ought not to have been withheld from the Public: assuredly, it seems
to me, ought to have been but half of the whole that now is.  But I do
not the less recognize Carlyle for more admirable than before--if for no
other reason than his thus furnishing the world with weapons against
himself which the World in general is glad to turn against him. . . .

And, by way of finishing what I have to say on Carlyle for the present, I
will tell you that I had to go up to our huge, hideous, London a week
ago, on disagreeable business; which Business, however, I got over in
time for me to run to Chelsea before I returned home at Evening.  I
wanted to see the Statue on the Chelsea Embankment which I had not yet
seen: and the old No. 5 of Cheyne Row, which I had not seen for five and
twenty years.  The Statue I thought very good, though looking somewhat
small and ill set-off by its dingy surroundings.  And No. 5 (now 24),
which had cost her so much of her Life, one may say, to make habitable
for him, now all neglected, unswept, ungarnished, uninhabited

'TO LET'

I cannot get it out of my head, the tarnished Scene of the Tragedy (one
must call it) there enacted.

Well, I was glad to get away from it, and the London of which it was a
small part, and get down here to my own dull home, and by no means sorry
not to be a Genius at such a Cost.  'Parlons d'autres choses.'

I got our Woodbridge Bookseller to enquire for your Mr. Child's Ballad-
book; but could only hear, and indeed be shown a specimen, of a large
Quarto Edition, _de luxe_ I believe, and would not meddle with that.  I
do not love any unwieldy Book, even a Dictionary; and I believe that I am
contented enough with such Knowledge as I have of the old Ballads in many
a handy Edition.  Not but I admire Mr. Child for such an undertaking as
his; but I think his Book will be more for Great Libraries, Public or
Private, than for my scanty Shelves at my age of seventy-five.  I have
already given away to Friends all that I had of any rarity or value,
especially if over octavo.

By the way there was one good observation, I think, in Mrs. Oliphant's
superficial, or hasty, History of English 18th Century Literature, viz.,
that when the Beatties, Blacks, and other recognized Poets of the Day
were all writing in a 'classical' way, and tried to persuade Burns to do
the like, it was certain Old Ladies who wrote so many of the Ballads,
which, many of them, have passed as ancient, 'Sir Patrick Spence' for
one, I think.

Our Spring flowers have been almost all spoilt by Winter weather, and the
Trees before my window only just now beginning to

   Stand in a mist of Green,

as Tennyson sings.  Let us hope their Verdure, late arrayed, will last
the longer.  I continue pretty well, with occasional reminders from
Bronchitis, who is my established Brownie.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE.  _Tuesday_,
[_June_ 12, 1883].

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

It is very kind of you to remember one who does so little to remind you
of himself.  Your drawing of Allen always seemed to me excellent, for
which reason it was that I thought his Wife should have it, as being the
Record of her husband in his younger days.  So of the portrait of
Tennyson which I gave his Wife.  Not that I did not value them myself,
but because I did value them, as the most agreeable Portraits I knew of
the two men; and, for that very reason, presented them to those whom they
were naturally dearer to than even to myself.  I have never liked any
Portrait of Tennyson since he grew a Beard; Allen, I suppose, has kept
out of that.

If I do not write, it is because I have absolutely nothing to tell you
that you have not known for the last twenty years.  Here I live still,
reading, and being read to, part of my time; walking abroad three or four
times a day, or night, in spite of wakening a Bronchitis, which has
lodged like the household 'Brownie' within; pottering about my Garden (as
I have just been doing) and snipping off dead Roses like Miss Tox; and
now and then a visit to the neighbouring Seaside, and a splash to Sea in
one of the Boats.  I never see a new Picture, nor hear a note of Music
except when I drum out some old Tune in Winter on an Organ, which might
almost be carried about the Streets with a handle to turn, and a Monkey
on the top of it.  So I go on, living a life far too comfortable as
compared with that of better, and wiser men: but ever expecting a reverse
in health such as my seventy-five years are subject to.  What a tragedy
is that of ---!  So brisk, bright, good, a little woman, who seemed made
to live!  And now the Doctors allot her but two years longer at most, and
her friends think that a year will see the End! and poor ---, tender,
true, and brave!  His letters to me are quite fine in telling about it.
Mrs. Kemble wrote me word some two or three months ago that he was
looking very old: no wonder.  I am told that she keeps up her Spirits the
better of the two.  Ah, Providence might have spared 'pauvre et triste
Humanite' that Trial, together with a few others which (one would think)
would have made no difference to its Supremacy.  'Voila ma petite
protestation respectueuse a la Providence,' as Madame de Sevigne says.

To-morrow I am going (for my one annual Visit) to G. Crabbe's, where I am
to meet his Sisters, and talk over old Bredfield Vicarage days.  Two of
my eight Nieces are now with me here in my house, for a two months'
visit, I suppose and hope.  And I think this is all I have to tell you of

Yours ever sincerely
E. F. G.

* * * * *

This was in all probability the last letter FitzGerald ever wrote.  On
the following day, Wednesday, June 13, he went to pay his annual visit at
Merton Rectory.  On Friday the 15th I received from Mr. Crabbe the
announcement of his peaceful end: 'I grieve to have to tell you that our
dear friend Edward FitzGerald died here this morning [June 14].  He came
last evening to pay his usual visit with my sisters, but did not seem in
his usual spirits, and did not eat anything. . . .  At ten he said he
would go to bed.  I went up with him. . . .  At a quarter to eight I
tapped at his door to ask how he was, and getting no answer went in and
found him as if sleeping peacefully but quite dead.  A very noble
character has passed away.'  On the following Tuesday, June 19, he was
buried in the little churchyard of Boulge, and the stone which marks his
grave bears the simple inscription 'Edward FitzGerald, Born 31 March
1809, Died 14 June 1883.  It is He that hath made us and not we
ourselves.'

For some time before his death he seems to have had a foreboding that the
end was not far distant.  In one of the last conversations I had with
him, certainly during my last visit at Easter 1883, he spoke of his
mother's death, in its suddenness very like his own, and at the same age.
'We none of us get beyond seventy-five,' he said.  At this age his eldest
brother had died, four years before.  And in a letter to one of his
nieces, after speaking of the fatal malady by which the wife of a dear
friend was attacked, he added, 'It seems strange to me to be so seemingly
alert--certainly, alive--amid such fatalities with younger and stronger
people.  But, even while I say so, the hair may break, and the suspended
Sword fall.  If it would but do so at once, and effectually!'  Sixteen
days later his wish was fulfilled.




INDEX TO LETTERS


_To_ MISS AITKEN, 188

_To_ JOHN ALLEN, 63*, 70-72*, 74, 169*, 206, 219

_To_ MRS. CHARLES ALLEN, 7-9*, 14-16*

_To_ MISS ANNA BIDDELL, 134, 178, 179, 189, 205, 295, 304

_From_ CARLYLE, 135, 154, 155, 167, 175*

_To_ CARLYLE, 5, 128, 155, 165

_To_ E. B. COWELL, 1, 4*, 19*, 26, 44*, 52*, 57, 59*, 68*, 78*, 83-86*,
93-95*, 99, 103, 106*, 107, 111*, 128 _note_, 180, 185, 202, 270 _note_,
322 _note_

_To_ MRS. COWELL, 65*, 196, 216

_To_ GEORGE CRABBE, 17, 18, 21, 35, 39, 41, 42, 51, 57, 208 _note_

_To_ W. E. CROWFOOT, 118 _note_

_From_ W. B. DONNE, 169 _note_

_To_ W. B. DONNE, 3, 33, 40, 48, 66, 91, 164

_To_ FITZEDWARD HALL, 220*

_To_ LORD HOUGHTON, 285*

_To_ CHARLES KEENE, 280, 289-293

_To_ MRS. KEMBLE, 298, 305, 310-312, 320, 332-335

_To_ S. LAURENCE, 50, 55, 56, 113-116, 171, 190, 212, 277, 303, 337, 346

_To_ J. R. LOWELL, 224-226, 235, 245-249, 257, 260, 261, 266-272

_To_ C. E. NORTON, 157, 186, 190-192, 196-199, 203, 208, 213, 222, 229-
234, 241-244, 253-255, 258, 262, 275, 278, 281, 294, 298, 301, 315-318,
321, 327, 329, 330, 339, 340, 343

_To_ W. F. POLLOCK, 12, 96, 102, 117-121, 127, 130-132, 135, 137-152, 158-
163, 168, 172, 181, 307, 336, 338, 342

_To_ MISS S. F. SPEDDING, 313, 314

_To_ FREDERIC TENNYSON, 89

_To_ HALLAM (now LORD) TENNYSON, 328

_To_ MRS. ALFRED (now the DOWAGER LADY) TENNYSON, 308

_To_ MISS THACKERAY, 141 _note_, 207

_From_ W. H. THOMPSON, 174*

_To_ W. H. THOMPSON, 11, 24, 28-31, 34, 36*, 51, 73, 76, 77, 80*, 123,
177*, 296*

_To_ MRS. W. H. THOMPSON, 108, 183

_To_ R. C. TRENCH, 23, 62, 284, 287

_To_ H. SCHUTZ WILSON, 324

_To_ W. A. WRIGHT, 97, 126, 133, 217, 238, 239, 251, 322*

_The asterisks indicate the letters which are here printed for the first
time_.




INDEX


ACADEMY (Royal), Exhibition of, i. 39

Acis and Galatea, i. 101, 102, 239

Aconites, 'New Year's Gifts,' ii. 180, 320

AEschylus, the geography of the Agamemnon, ii. 33-35; FitzGerald's
translation of the Agamemnon, 109, 112, 162, 186, 188, 216; reviewed in
the Nation, 224; Dr. Kennedy's translation, 259

Airy (William), at school with FitzGerald, i. 2; visits him at
Woodbridge, ii. 66

Aitken (Lucy), her letters, ii. 64

Aldeburgh, ii. 290-292, 332; storm at, 342

Allegro and Penseroso, i. 153, 166

Allen (Anne), i. 72

--(Dr.), i. 79

--John, at Cambridge with FitzGerald, i. 2; letters to, 4, 5, etc.; his
portrait by Laurence, ii. 15, 346

--(Mary), i. 70, 72, 73

Allenby (Mrs.), i. 155

Arnold (Dr.), his visit to Naseby with Carlyle, i. 125, 126, 132; his
Life, 181

Art, objects of, article in Fraser, ii. 145

Arthur (King), the myth of, not suitable for an epic poem, ii.. 111

Attar's Mantic uttair, i. 311, 312, 314-317, 319, 320, 342

Ausonius, i. 205 _note_

Austen (Miss), ii. 13, 131, 174; FitzGerald could not read her novels,
190

Austin (Mrs.), characteristics of Goethe, i. 53

Azael the Prodigal, i. 268

BACON, Essay of Friendship, i. 21; of Masques, 153; Sylva, ii. 160

Balfe, ballad by, i. 178

Barton (Bernard), his poems, i. 105; his visit to Peel, 203; his portrait
by Laurence, 215, 225, 234; his death, 243, 246; edition of his Letters
and Poems with Memoir by FitzGerald, 246, 251, 252, 308

--(Lucy), afterwards Mrs. Edward FitzGerald, i. 50 _note_, 158, 186, 215,
216, 246, 249, 310, 326

Bassano, i. 186

Bath, i. 288

Beaumont (Sir G.), i. 165

Beauty the main object of the Arts, ii. 132

Beauty Bob, FitzGerald's parrot, i. 159

Beckford (Peter), Essays on Hunting, ii. 280

--(W.), i. 288

Beethoven, i. 57, 103, 113, 195, 200, 277, 290, ii. 118, 119, his Life by
Moscheles, i. 112

Beranger, his Letters, ii. 152, quoted 181

Berry (Miss), her correspondence, ii. 73

Bewick, his Life contains an account of a meeting of Wordsworth and
Foscolo, ii. 197

Blake, Songs of Innocence, i. 25

Bletsoe, i. 61; the Falcon Inn, 74

Bloomfield (Mrs.), mother of the poet, a saying of hers quoted, ii. 88

Boccaccio, ii. 203, 204

Bodham (Mrs.), i. 190

Borrow (George), i. 317, 334, 342; his Romany Rye, 331; Wild Wales, ii.
35

Bosherston, i. 337

Boswell's Life of Johnson, Croker's edition of, ii. 75

Boughton, pictures at, i. 56

Boulge Hall, his father's seat, i. 38, 75; 'Malebolge,' 79 _note_

Brambelli, i. 194

Bredfield House, i. 1, 63, 64

Brooke (F. C.), ii. 146

Browne (W.), Britannia's Pastorals, ii. 240

Browne (W. K.), i. 55, 123, 167; his marriage, 168, 185; first meets
FitzGerald at Tenby, 338; ii. 8, 10; his fatal accident 2-4, 6, 8

Browning Society (the), ii. 323

Brydges (Sir Egerton), i. 87

Burke's Letters, i. 182

Burnet (John), on Painting, i. 147

Burnet's History, i. 68

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, i. 139; Carlyle's style influenced by,
_ib._

Busbequius, i. 230

Byron's Verses on Rogers, ii. 144

CALDERON, translations from, i. 281, 282, 323, 346, 347; ii. 60, 112,
261; edition of the Magico, 262; his lines about Madrid, 274;
unfavourably noticed in the Athenaeum, i. 284; Trench's translation from
307; ii. 287; the Calderon medal sent to FitzGerald, 319

Campion (J. S.), On Foot in Spain, ii. 273

Carew quoted, i. 12, 13

Carlyle (Mrs.), her letters, ii. 343

--(T.), his French Revolution, i. 50; reviewed by Spedding, 73;
Miscellanies, 65; Hero Worship, 82, 85; Sartor Resartus, 123; Cromwell,
126, etc, 187, 190, 196, 207; his account of the battle of Naseby, 205;
writes on Ireland in the Examiner, 239, 253; his saying about Dickens,
251; his Latter Day Pamphlets, 258; at Malvern 272; at Firlingay with
FitzGerald, 295; at Croydon, 302; reading Voltaire, 302; his Frederic the
Great, ii. 7, 64; Mrs. Carlyle's death, 89; Letters on Naseby, 128; on
Omar Khayyam, 154, 155; article in Fraser, 178-180; staying near Bromley,
183; his letters to FitzGerald about Cromwell, 184; Medal and Address
presented to him on his eightieth birthday, 186; his Lectures on Hero
Worship, 191; his visit to Dumfries, 201; reads Victor Hugo, 229; till
past midnight at his books, 234, 236; his visit to Thirlwall, 237;
reading Goethe, 253; sends FitzGerald his Norway Kings and Knox, 254;
reads Shakespeare through to himself, 270; buried at Ecclefechan, 298,
309; his Reminiscences, 302, 304, 308, 311, 317; his visit to Ireland,
323; Biography, 332, 334, 339; correspondence with Emerson, 340, 342

Castle Ashby, pictures at, i. 121

Catullus, ii. 232, 233, 238, 239

Charlesworth (Miss E.), afterwards Mrs. E. B. Cowell, i. 156, 160, 174;
her poems, ii. 54

--(Miss M.), ii. 54

Cherubini's Medea, ii. 119

Child (Professor), his English Ballads, ii. 344

Childs (Charles), of Bungay, i. 265

Chorley's Musical Recollections, ii. 127

Churchyard (T.), a solicitor at Woodbridge, and an amateur artist, i. 94,
117, 133, 147, 148, 159, 190, 192, 2l6, 221, 243; calls the winter
Aconites 'New Year's Gifts', ii. 180; his sketch of Thorpe headland by
Aldeburgh, 292

Clarissa Harlowe, i. 108; ii. 64, 107, 208; a favourite with Alfred de
Musset, 243, 248

Clarke (E. W.), i. 114

Claude, i. 54

Clive (Kitty), her saying of Mrs. Siddons, ii. 184

Clora, verses to, i. 15, 19

Coleridge, Life by De Quincey, i. 32

Collins (Wilkie), The Woman in White, ii. 90, 95, 131

Constable (J.), pictures by, i. 76-78, 100, 104, 106, 117, 159; Life by
Leslie, 165

Contat (Mademoiselle), ii. 148

Cookson (Dr. W.), a correspondent of Carlyle's, i. 156, 157; his death,
161

Coverley, Sir Roger de, suggested illustrations of, by Thackeray, i. 29,
39

Cowell (E. B.), his translations from Hafiz, i. 205, 294, 304, 306, 332;
paper on the Mesnavi, 232; goes up to Oxford, 261; article on Calderon in
the Westminster Review, 284, 307; his Pracrit Grammar, 286; his Oxford
Essay, 307; appointed Professor of History at the Presidency College,
Calcutta 309; his translation of Azrael, ii. 27; visits FitzGerald on his
return to England, 57; elected Sanskrit Professor at Cambridge, 93; his
Inaugural Lecture, 95, 97; visits FitzGerald at Woodbridge, 232; his
suggestion for a Spanish Dictionary on the plan of Littre, 258, 273; at
Lowestoft with FitzGerald reading Don Quixote, 272, 274-277

Cowley, ii. 26

Crabbe (Rev. George), the poet, hears Wesley preach at Lowestoft, i. 292;
quoted, ii. 17, 163, 187, 210, 211, 256, 272; selections from his poems,
67, 211, 214, 258, 281; portraits of him, 171; FitzGerald's admiration
for, 210, 215; readings from, 264, 266; his humour, 209, 269, 281; his
epigrammatic power, 270, 272; article on him in the Atlantic Monthly, 281

--(Rev. George), Vicar of Bredfield, i. 39, 187, 260, 262, 265, 266, 274,
286, 296, 297; ii. 210; reads D' Israeli's Coningsby, i. 174; Whewell's
Plurality of Worlds, 293; his illness, 334; and death, 340

--(Rev. George), Rector of Merton, his account of FitzGerald, i. 148, 149

Crome, i. 117, 191

Cromwell, i. 137; his Lincolnshire campaign, 154; miniature copied by
Laurence, 198; the Squire Letters, 213

DANTE, his portrait by Giotto, i. 90, 93; like Homer atones with the sea,
ii. 45; quoted, 48, 146; translated into Modern Greek by Musurus Pasha,
323, 327

D'Arblay (Madame), anecdote of, ii. 56; on Johnson's later years, 75

Darien Song (the), i. 100

Davenant's alteration of Macbeth, i. 31

De Quincey, life of Coleridge, i. 32; paper on Southey, etc., in Tait's
Magazine, 65; on Wordsworth, 199; proposed to Lowell as the subject for
an Essay, ii. 246

De Soyres (the Rev. John), FitzGerald's nephew, his edition of Pascal's
Letters, ii. 297

Deutsch (Emanuel), his article on the Talmud in the Quarterly, ii. 97

Dickens (C.), Master Humphrey's Clock, i. 66; Dombey and Son, 238; David
Copperfield, 251, 255; Holyday Romance, ii. 147; his Life by Forster,
153, 171, 277; FitzGerald's admiration for, 172, 278

D'Israeli's Lothair, ii. 134

Don Giovanni, i. 58, 195

Donne (John), sermons, i. 42; poems, ii. 26

--(W. B.), at school with FitzGerald, i. 2; FitzGerald's affection for
him, 22 _note_; article on Hallam, 80; writes in the British and Foreign
Review, 84; engaged upon a History of Rome, 97, 99, 115; his Address to
the Norwich Athenaeum, 204; removes to Bury, 207; his portrait by
Laurence, 259; articles on Pepys, 260; Deputy Licenser of Plays, 268;
succeeds Kemble as Licenser of Plays, 323; writes on Calderon in Fraser,
_ib._; on the Antonines in the Edinburgh, ii. 53; his story of Lord
Chatham and the Bishops, 68; article in the Athenaeum on his edition of
the Correspondence of George III. and Lord North, 91; his proposed
edition of Tacitus, 93; his account of Tacitus in Ancient Classics for
English Readers, 164; his declining health, 322; his death, 337

Donne (W. Mowbray), ii. 53

Don Quixote, ii. 94, 95, 97, 170, 198, 199, 201-204, 268, 272, 274

Doudan, ii. 234, 243, 249

Dryden, ii. 216; his Prefaces, 227; his prose style, 228

Duncan (Francis), i. 222, 223; ii. 71; stays with FitzGerald at
Woodbridge, 77

Dunwich, ruins of the Grey Friars' Monastery, ii. 223, 225, 228, 229,
255, 258, 277

Dysart (Louisa, Countess of), portrait of, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, i. 56

EASTLAKE (C. L.), i. 39; his translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours,
67, 80

Edgeworth (F.), i. 31, 88; his wife and sister-in-law, 36; living at
Eltham, 43; article on Pindar, 80; mentioned, 142, 144; his death, 210;
mentioned in Carlyle's Life of Stirling, ii. 184

--(Miss), i. 88-90, 144

Edwards (Edwin), ii. 122, 146; his illness, 255, 258; and death, 277

--(Mrs.), ii. 303

Eliot (George), The Mill on the Floss, ii. 159; not admired by
FitzGerald, 190, 257

Elliott (Ebenezer), Posthumous Poems, i. 255, 256

Emerson (R. W.), Representative Men, i. 256; on Scott, ii. 194; his
death, 330; correspondence with Carlyle, 340, 342, 343

English Gentry (the), i. 68

Eothen, i. 189

Etty (W.), picture of the Bridge of Sighs, i. 39; 'Aaron,' 239; 'John the
Baptist,' _ib._

Euphranor, i. 211, 266, 267; ii. 103, 150, 228, 317, 328, 329; praised by
Tennyson, ii. 104

Euripides, ii. 48, 49, 85, 87

Evans (R. W.), i. 73

FAIRES (Mrs.), FitzGerald's housekeeper at Boulge Cottage, i. 149, 159

Fidelio, ii. 118

Fields' Yesterdays with Authors, ii. 145

FitzGerald, Edward, born at Bredfield, i. 1; goes to Paris, _ib._; to
school at Bury St. Edmunds, 2; to Trinity College, Cambridge, _ib._; took
his degree, 3; at Southampton, 5; at Naseby, _ib._; earliest attempt at
verse, 5-9; visits Salisbury, 10; and Bemerton, _ib._; at Tenby, 11, 46,
69, 70; his Paradise, a collection of English verse, 12; reads
Shakespeare's Sonnets, 14; adopts a vegetable diet, 22; living in London,
24; sees Shakespeare's Hamlet, 24, 28; Henry VIII., 24; Macbeth, 25, 31;
with Spedding at Cambridge, 28; living at Wherstead Lodge, _ib._; his
friendships like loves, 30; reading The Merry Wives of Windsor, _ib._;
and the Spectator, _ib._; with Spedding and Tennyson at Mirehouse, 33;
ii. 305, 310, 315; at Ambleside, i. 33; his father removes to Boulge, 38,
39; reading Aristophanes, 44, 47; his cottage at Boulge, 47, 48; reading
Plutarch's Lives, _ib._, and Lyell's Geology, _ib._; his marriage with
Miss Barton, 50 _note_; stays in Bedfordshire, 52, 61, 67; at Lowestoft
with W. Browne, 55; reading Pindar, 56; Tacitus, 60; Homer, 64; at his
uncle Peter Purcell's at Halverstown, 62; reads Burnet, 68; Herodotus,
71; regrets his want of scholarship, _ib._; grows bald, _ib._; makes Tar
water, 72; reads Newman's sermons, 73; buys a picture by Constable, 76;
stays at Edgeworthstown, 88; at Naseby, 90; reads Livy, 97; invited to
lecture at Ipswich, 97, 99; his opinion of his own verses, 105; first
meets Carlyle, 125; his excavations at Naseby, and correspondence with
Carlyle, 126, etc.; reads Virgil's Georgics, 134; in Ireland, 141-143;
his cottage at Boulge, 150; visits Carlyle, 159, 169; his life at Boulge,
164, 176, 180; visits W. B. Donne, 173; makes an abstract of the Old
Curiosity Shop for children, 174; at Leamington, 175; at Cambridge, 210;
reads Thucydides, 214, 228, 233, 248; his interview with William Squire,
216-220; at Exeter, 220; reads Homer, 228; contributes notes to Selden's
Table Talk, 231; his father's death, 278; translations from Calderon,
281; studies Persian, 282, 285, 286; at Farlingay, 287, 294; at Bath,
287; at Oxford, 290; Carlyle stays with him at Farlingay, 295; translates
Jami's Salaman and Absal, 304, 306; reading Hafiz, 311; and Attar's
Mantic uttair, i. 311; which he translates, 312, 313, etc.; ii. 44, 100;
reading AEschylus, i. 324, 325; thinks of translating the Trilogy, 330;
at Gorlestone, 331; reading Omar Khayyam, 332, 335; his epitome of
Attar's Mantic uttair, 342, 348; his translations from Omar Khayyam
offered to Fraser's Magazine, 345, 348; ii. 2, 29; translates Calderon's
Mighty Magician, i. 346; ii. 60; and Vida es Sueno, i. 347; ii. 5, 61,
62; collects a Vocabulary of rustic English, i. 347; prints his
translation of Omar, ii. 2, 4, 29; stays at Aldeburgh, 16; gives a
fragment of Tennyson's MS. to Thompson, 25; who returns it, 28; his new
boat, 37, 40, 45; at Merton with George Crabbe, 39; at Ely, _ib._; goes
to Holland, 42; reads Dante and Homer, 45, 48; the sea brings up his
appetite for Greek, 49; buys Little Grange, 57; sends his translation of
the Mighty Magician to Trench, 62; and of Vida es Sueno to Archdeacon
Allen, 63; proposes a Selection from Crabbe, 67; carries Sophocles to sea
with him, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85; makes his will, 80; does not care for
Horace, 82, 83; reads Euripides, 86, 87; The Woman in White, 90, 95; his
Herring-lugger, 90, 94, 101, 103, 109; reads Don Quixote, 94, 95, 97,
170; and Boccaccio, 95, 97; his Lugger Captain, 94, 101, 103, 106, 107,
110, 113-116, 213; his Sea Words and Phrases, 116; proposes to adapt the
music of Fidelio to Tennyson's King Arthur, 119; his acquaintance with
Spanish, 121; gives up his yacht, The Scandal, 126; reads Scott, 128;
cannot read George Eliot, 159, 190; goes to Naseby about the monument,
160; reports his failure to Carlyle, 165; goes to Abbotsford, 172, 194;
makes the acquaintance of Madame de Sevigne, 184, 185; begins to 'smell
the ground,' 185; sends the Agamemnon and two Calderon plays to Professor
Norton, 186, 187; death of his old boatman, 217; reads Munro's Lucretius,
_ib._; Carlyle's Cromwell, 229, 230; at Dunwich, 255; his Readings from
Crabbe, 264, 266; his Half Hours with the Worst Authors, 280; sends his
Readings from Crabbe to Trench, 284; does not care for modern poetry,
288; his Quarter-deck, 293; is troubled with pains about the heart, 296;
sends Professor Norton Part II. of OEdipus, 301; has Carlyle's Meerschaum
as a relic, 303; spends two days at Cambridge, 316; receives the Calderon
medal, 319; reads the Fortunes of Nigel, 321; at Aldeburgh, 332; reads
Carlyle's Biography, 332, 334, 339; meets Professor Fawcett, 333, 336;
his last letter, 346; dies at Merton, 348; and is buried at Boulge, _ib._

FitzGerald (Isabella), FitzGerald's sister, i. 73, 161

--(John Purcell), FitzGerald's eldest brother, his wife's illness, i. 35,
48; mentioned, 50; his death, ii. 263, 267

--(Lusia or Andalusia), Mrs. De Soyres, FitzGerald's sister, i. 95; her
marriage, 174; her home in Somersetshire, 222

--(Mary Frances), FitzGerald's mother, i. I; her portrait by Sir Thomas
Lawrence, ii. 297

--(Peter), brother of Edward, ii. 66; his wife, 68; her illness, 77; and
death, 82, 85, 86

Fletcher, quoted, i. 16, 17

Ford (Richard), Gatherings in Spain, ii. 320

Forster's Life of Dickens, ii. 153, 277

Foscolo, ii. 197

Franco-German War (the), ii. 117

Freestone, the Allens' house at, i. 69-71, 337; ii. 10

French character, change in, ii. 118 _note_

French Revolution, i. 235

Frere (Mrs.), i. 58

GAINSBOROUGH Fight, i. 161, 162

--(T.), the Watering Place, i. 78, 95; picture attributed to, 94, 95;
'the Goldsmith of Painters,' 95; his method, 147; copy by Laurence of his
portrait of Dupont, ii. 56; his saying on his deathbed, _ib._

Gasker (Athanasius), Library of Useless Knowledge, i. 114

Gay (Sophie), Salons de Paris, ii. 148

Geldart (Joseph), i. 173, 243

Geldestone Hall, the residence of Fitz-Gerald's sister, Mrs. Kerrich, i.
3, etc.

Generals (The Two), ii. 105, 107

Gil Blas, ii. 180

Gillies, his Life of a Literary Veteran, contains letters of Wordsworth
and notices of Scott, ii. 197, 199

Goethe, Characteristics of, i. 53; Theory of Colours, 67; Tennyson's
saying of him, ii. 193; translation of Faust, 262; FitzGerald believed in
him as philosopher and critic, not as poet, _ib._; his theory that the
two OEdipuses and Antigone were a Trilogy, 278

Goethe and Schiller, correspondence of, ii. 320

Gordon (Lady Duff), her Letters from Egypt, ii. 69

Gray's Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College, i. 63; his Elegy, ii,
209, 270; his opinion of Dryden's prose, 228

Griffin (Gerald), The Collegians, i. 90

Groome (J. H.), i. 260

--(R. H.), Archdeacon of Suffolk, ii. 59, 73, 97, 200, 253

Gurgoyle School of Art (the), ii. 248

HAFIZ, i. 205, 294, 304, 306, 311, 319, 320, 322

Half Hours with the Worst Authors, ii. 280

Ham, i. 275

Hampton Court, i. 276

Handel, i. 101-103, 111, 112, 153, 166, 183, 200, 265, 266, 290; ii. 49

Hare (A. J. C.), his Spain, ii. 169; Memorials _ib._

--(J. C. and A. W.), Guesses at Truth, i. 53

Harrington's Oceana, i. 140

Hatifi, i. 329, 348

Hawthorne (Nathaniel), ii. 145; a man of true genius, 191, 246, 265, 271;
his Journal in England, 265; a noble book, 267; FitzGerald does not take
to him, 105, 246, 271; his Italian Journal, 273

Haydon (B. R.), Memoir by his son, contains notices of Wordsworth, ii.
197, 199

Haymarket Theatre (the), associated with Vestris, ii. 120, 138; Pasta,
138, 295; and Rubini, 295

Hazlitt (W.), his English Poets, ii. 196

Heine (H.), ii. 150, 162

Helmingham Hall, i. 56

Herodotus, i. 71, 73

Holmes (O. W.), ii. 191

Hugo (Victor), Toilers of the Sea, ii. 145, 150; his Miserables, 229

Hullah, i. 243

Hunt (Holman), his Christ in the Temple, ii. 17

--(Leigh), selections by, i. 179

Hypocrite (the), i. 254

INGELOW (Jean), ii. 46, 47, 54

JAMI'S Salaman and Absal, i. 304, 306, 312, 317, 318; new edition of
FitzGerald's version, ii. 263, 324; the first Persian poem read by
FitzGerald, 325

Jelaleddin, i. 312, 317, 319; ii. 27

Jenney (Mr.), the owner of Bredfield House, i. 63, 64, 96, 106

Johnson's lines on Levett quoted, i. 124; his bookcase, 196

Juvenal, ii. 34, 35, 58, 59

KEATS' Letters and Poems, i. 246; his Hyperion, ii. 178, 246, 249; his
Love Letters, 233, 235, 238, 245; subject for picture from K., 235, 239,
293; his sister, 249; Severn's letters about him, 276

Keene (C. S.), sends a packet of his drawings to FitzGerald, ii. 291; and
an old map of Paris, 293; recommends North's Memoir of Music, 323

Kemble (Charles), i. 44

--(J. M.), at school with FitzGerald, i. 2; recites Hotspur's speech,
_ib._, working on Anglo Saxon MSS. at Cambridge, 25; article in the
British and Foreign Review, 80, 84

--(Mrs. Fanny), her opinion of the translations from Calderon, ii. 67,
187; makes the Agamemnon known in America, 186, 188; declines to join the
Browning Society, 323

Kerrich (Mrs), FitzGerald's favourite sister, her death, ii. 46

--(Walter), FitzGerald's nephew, married, i. 335

LADIES MAGAZINE, ii. 140

Lamb (Charles), Album Verses, i. 32; Essays in the London Magazine, 143;
Letters, ii. 198, 240; FitzGerald's Data of his life, 239, 242, 247

Landor (W. S.), i. 288, 289

Laurence (S.), Spedding's description of, i. 75 _note_, his opinion of
Gainsborough, 95; his portraits of Wilkinson, 167, 170; Coningham, 166,
171; Barton, 215, 225, 234; Tennyson, 242, 243; Donne, 259; studies the
Venetian secret of colour, 243; his portrait of Archdeacon Allen, ii. 15;
his opinion of Romney's portraits, 41; his portraits of Thackeray, 50,
55; asked by FitzGerald to copy Pickersgill's portrait of Crabbe, 171

Le Desert, i. 194

Lever (C.), his Cornelius O'Dowd, ii. 181

Lewis (G. Cornewall), ii. 183

Lily (Lyly or Lilly) quoted, i. 15

Lind (Jenny), i. 224, 237, 239

Longfellow, ii. 191; his death, 330

Longus, i. 211

Louis Philippe, i. 59

Louvre, the, i. 4

Lowell (J. R.), Among my Books, ii. 191, 192, 199, 203; his Odes, 208,
215; his Essays, 222, 223, 226, 227, 229, 230; proposed to visit
FitzGerald, 224, 225; his Moosehead Journal, 233; Mrs. Lowell's illness,
272

Lowestoft, the beachmen decline to join the Naval Reserve, ii. 13

Lucretius, ii. 58; Professor Sellar's article on, _ib._, Munro's edition,
82, 217-219; quoted, 218; coincidence with Bacon, 219

Lushington (Franklin), i. 291

Luton, pictures at, i. 74

Lyell's Geology, i. 229

MACAULAY's Memoirs, ii. 200

Macnish (Dr.), lines on Milton, i. 65

Macready as Wolsey, i. 24; as Macbeth, 24, 25; as Hamlet, 28; his revival
of Acis and Galatea, 102; as Virginius, ii. 120, 158; his funeral, 158

Malkin (Arthur), his marriage, i. 27

--(Dr.), master of Bury School, his opinion of Crabbe, ii. 300

Manfred, i. 31

Martial, i. 229, 230

Martineau (Miss), cured by mesmerism, i. 179

Marvell (Andrew), quoted, ii. 133, 134

Matthews (Rev. T. R.), of Bedford, i. 122, 160, 169; his death, 197

Maurice (F. D.), his Introductory Lecture, i. 139; the Kingdom of Christ,
_ib._

Mazzinghi, (T. J.), i. 14

Mendelssohn, new Symphony by, i. 120; his Midsummer Night's Dream, 177,
237; Elijah, 237; Fingal's Cave, _ib._; his opinion of Donizetti, ii. 127

Merivale (C.), Dean of Ely, his marriage, i. 264; History of Rome, _ib._;
ii. 260; meets FitzGerald at Lowestoft, 297

Meyerbeer, i. 277

Millais, ii. 142, 173, 293

Milnes (R. M.), Lord Houghton, i. 114; ii. 245, 249

Moliere, his Life by Taschereau, ii. 150

Montagu (Basil), Selections from Jeremy Taylor, etc. i. 34; Life of
Bacon, 42; a saying of his recorded, 151

Montaigne, ii. 91, 92, 95, 97, 98; traces of him in Shakespeare and
Bacon, 251

Montgomery (James), quoted, i. 185

--(Robert), i. 169

Moor (Major), i. 89; his death, 235; his Oriental Fragments, 308

Moore (Morris), i. 166, 175, 210, 239; his controversy with Eastlake, 225

--(T.), his Memoirs, i. 286

Morland, picture by, i. 192

Morton (Savile), i, 58, 59, 77, 81, 83, 85, 88, 93, 101, 104, 118, 121,
123, 150, 170, 177, 181, 188, 202, 239; a selection of his Letters sent
to Blackwood's Magazine but not published, ii. 76, 141; others collected
by FitzGerald, 76, 89, 141

Moxon (E.) his Sonnets, i. 87

Mozart, i. 195, 200, 277; ii. 119; his Requiem, 122, 123; his Cosi, 151

Mozley's Reminiscences of Oriel, ii. 341

Muller (Max), Essay on Comparative Mythology, i. 309; on Darwin, ii. 160

Munro (H. A. J.), his edition of Lucretius, ii. 82, 217-219; his
Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus, 232, 236, 238

Musset (Alfred de), ii. 243, 248

NASEBY, i. 5, 75

--battle of, i. 91, 125; FitzGerald's excavations, 126, etc., 206; ii.
129; Carlyle's proposed inscription for a pillar, i. 301; ii. 128, 132,
135, 136

Nelson (John), his Autobiography, ii. 105:

--(Lord), ii. 23

Newman (J. H.), his Sermons, i. 73; his Apologia, ii. 57, 72; an admirer
of Crabbe, 341

Newson, captain of FitzGerald's yacht, his son drowned off Cromer, ii.
189

Newton, Roubiliac's statue of, ii. 161; suggested inscription for, _ib._

--(Dr.), a writer on Vegetable Regimen, i. 23 _note_

--(Rev. J.), his journal, i. 41

--(Napoleon), i. 311, 312, 321, 329; his death, 332

Niebuhr, i. 97

Nizami, i. 300, 317

Nonnus, i. 211

Northcote, picture by, i. 99, 101

Norton (Professor C. E.), ii. 153; his translation of Dante's Vita Nuova,
201, 203, 205; his Report on Olympia, 232, 233

Nursey (Perry), a Suffolk artist, i. 63, 72

OLIPHANT (Mrs.), her History of English Eighteenth Century Literature,
ii. 345

Omar Khayyam, i. 320, 332-334, 343; ii. 26, 27, 325; transcript by
FitzGerald sent to Garcin de Tassy, i. 325; MS. sent him from Calcutta by
Prof. Cowell, 334, 336 edition by Nicolas; ii. 100; new edition of
FitzGerald's version, 263, 326

Opie, picture by, i. 107, 110

Ouse, the, i. 61, 68, 74, 168, 185

PAISIELLO'S Music liked by Napoleon, ii. 131

Pascal's Letters, ii. 297

Pasta, ii. 137; in Medea, 138; in Semiramide, 139

Paul Veronese, i. 38, 107

Pembroke, siege of, i. 18

Pepys' Diary, ii. 234

Piozzi (Mrs.), sale of her house at Streatham, i. 196

Plagiarism, ii. 252

Pliny's Letters, i. 230

Poetry in relation to morals, i. 37

Pollock (Lady), her article on American Literature, ii. 163

--(W. F.), his marriage, i. 153; his article on British Novelists in
Fraser, ii. 13

Polonius, i. 273

Portraits should be flattered, ii. 30

Poussin's Orion, i. 221

Poussins (the two), i. 54

RAFFAELLE (or Raphael), i. 38, 54; ii. 151

'Ranger (The),' loss of, ii. 290

Regnard, ii. 145

Reliable, ii. 220

Rembrandt, i. 54

Repeal, i. 141, 142

Reynolds (F.), ii. 120, 121

--(Sir Joshua), pictures by, i. 192; ii. 56, 57, 108, 114, 151

Richardson, his Novels reviewed in the Cornhill, ii. 102; superior to
Fielding, 131

Rogers (S.), ii. 144; depreciates Scott, 247

Romney, Life by Hayley, i. 124; his portraits, ii. 41

Roqueplan, ii. 147

Rose (H. J.), Untrodden Spain, ii. 225; Among the Spanish People, 250

Rossini, ii. 122

Rubens, i. 38, 54, 147; ii. 151

Rubini, ii. 295

Rushworth's Collections, i. 199

Ruskin (J.), his letter to the Translator of Omar Khayyam, ii. 153

SADI'S Bostan, i. 344

Ste. Beuve, ii. 169, 228; his saying of Madame de Sevigne, 244, 249

Schlegel (A. W. V.), his History of Literature, i. 92

Schutz (Mrs.), i. 44, 45, 49, 59, 174

Science, poetry of, i. 229

Scott (Sir Walter), The Pirate, ii. 128, 130, 131; FitzGerald's love for,
190, 235, 237, 261; depreciated by the Lake Poets and Carlyle, 194;
appreciated by Emerson, _ib._; his Journey to Douglas Dale, _ib._;
subjects for pictures from, 235; Guy Mannering, 244, 245, 250; hated by
the Whigs, 247; The Bride of Lammermoor, 261; Kenilworth, 265

Sea Words and Phrases, ii. 116

Selden's Table Talk, FitzGerald's notes on, i. 231

Sellar (Professor), his article on Lucretius, ii. 58

Selwyn's Correspondence, i. 196

Seneca, i. 151, 182

Severn, his letters about Keats, ii. 276

Sevigne (Mad. de), ii. 184, 185, 196, 217, 310, 312; FitzGerald's
Dictionary of the Dramatis Personae in her letters, 217, 289; Ste.
Beuve's saying of, 244, 249; subject for a picture from, 293

Shakespeare, his Sonnets, i. 14; FitzGerald buys the second and third
Folios, 31; Othello, ii. 251, 252

--(the Cambridge), ii. 47

Shelley, reviewed in the Edinburgh, i. 62; Trelawny's story of his death,
ii. 189; disputed reading in, 250; too unsubstantial for FitzGerald, 251

Sheridan's School for Scandal the best comedy in the language, ii. 159

Siddons (Mrs.), ii. 137, 149

Sizewell Gap, ii. 290

Smith (Horace), i. 97

Sonnets, FitzGerald's indifference to, i. 84, 87; ii. 212

Sophocles, the Antigone of, i. 186, 188; FitzGerald's admiration for, ii.
85; his superiority to Euripides, 86, 87; translation of the two
OEdipuses, 258, 275, 278, 279, 301, 315, 318, 319, 321; the OEdipus
Tyrannus played at Harvard, 316; the Ajax at Cambridge, 339

Sophocles and AEschylus compared, i. 240; ii. 49, 259

Southey, Life of Cowper by, i. 40, 42; his Life and Letters, 256

Southey (Mrs.), Caroline Bowles, i. 97

Spedding (James), at school with FitzGerald, i. 2; living in Lincoln's
Inn Fields, 43; reviews Carlyle's French Revolution in the Edinburgh, 73;
mentioned, 76, 114, 115, 138, 164, 167, 177, 207, 228, 239, 272, 276; ii.
38, 152, 174; his portrait by Laurence, i. 77; his forehead, 77, 78, 83,
116; his character, 193, 257; ii. 299, 302, 308; Evenings with a
Reviewer, i. 241; ii. 25; at Bramford with the Cowells, i. 262; his
article on Euphranor, 266; death of his niece, 291; his edition of Bacon,
310, 322; ii. 1, 25, 55; forestalled by Hepworth Dixon, 20; paper on
English hexameters, 25; FitzGerald's regret at his life wasted on Bacon,
38, 45, 46; should have edited Shakespeare, 38, 48, 135; his pamphlet on
Authors and Publishers, 89; article on Twelfth Night, 103; Carlyle's
letter on him, 175; his accident, 298; and death, 301, 303, 305, 307;
FitzGerald suggests a collection of his letters, 307, 309; Mrs. Cameron's
portrait of him, 338

Spenser, ii. 194

Spinoza, i. 204, 205, 209

Sprenger's Catalogue, i. 342

Spring Rice (Hon. S.), ii. 30, 32

Squirarchy, ii. 19, 20, 22

Squire Letters (the), i. 213, 216-220, 231; ii. 230, 235, 241, 242, 244,
331

Stephen (Leslie), review of Richardson's Novels in the Cornhill, ii. 102;
his Hours in a Library, 208, 209; on Crabbe's want of humour, 341

Sterling (John), i. 43

Stobaeus, i. 122, 123

Strawberry Hill, i. 276

Suicide, i. 257

Sumner (Charles), Memoir and Letters of, ii. 243, 247

TACITUS, i. 60; ii. 164, 165

Talma, ii. 75

Tannhauser, ii. 29

Tassy (Garcin de), i. 324, 325, 327; his edition of the Mantic, 325, 330,
342; ii. 100; his paper on Omar, i. 329, 343, 345

Taste the Feminine of Genius, i. 255; ii. 226

Taylor (Jeremy), i. 34, 35, 42, 44

--(Tom), Diogenes and his Lantern, i. 254

Tenby, i. 338

Tennant (R. J.), at Blackheath, i. 43; candidate for a school at
Cambridge, _ib._

Tennyson (A.), a contemporary of FitzGerald's at Cambridge, i. 3; his
Mariana, 9; and Lady of Shalott, 10; his new volume, 17; the Dream of
Fair Women, 20; fresh poems, 25; at Mirehouse and Ambleside with
FitzGerald, 33; ii. 305-307, 310; in London, i. 51, 81; at Leamington,
Stratford, and Kenilworth with FitzGerald, 68; preparing for the press,
93, 113; edition of his poems, 1842, 115, 119; undergoing the water cure,
151; staying at Park House, 176, 224; at Carlyle's, 181; In Memoriam,
187, 250, 263, 273; mentioned, 168, 190, 192, 277; new poem, 194; in the
Isle of Wight, 207; The Princess, 237, 246, 249, 250, 253, 254; his
portrait by Laurence, 242, 243; ii. 346; his opinion of Thackeray's
Pendennis, i. 244; in chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 250, 253, 254;
his marriage, 263; at Twickenham, 285; goes to the Isle of Wight, 286,
287; King Arthur, 311; his saying of Hafiz, 320; his bust not at first
admitted into Trinity College Library, ii. 12; his saying of the Dresden
Madonna, 23, 181; FitzGerald regrets that he left Lincolnshire, 47; his
Maud, 60; at Greyshott Hall, Haslemere, 89; his Death of Lucretius, 89;
Locksley Hall, 105; The Holy Grail, 111; his Gareth and Lynette, 143; his
saying of Crabbe, 152; of Dante and Goethe, 193; of Milton's similes and
his diction, 193; visits FitzGerald at Woodbridge, 202, 204; The Northern
Farmer, 206; Ode on the Funeral of the Duke of Wellington, 216; Ballad on
Lucknow, 267

Tennyson (Charles), his poems, ii. 259, 264, 294, 297; his death, 264

--(Frederic), his account of Cicero's villa, i. 123; urged to publish his
poems, 164, 250, 258, 264; their publication, 285, 289; with FitzGerald
at Woodbridge, ii. 55; lives in a World of Spirits, 65; FitzGerald sends
him Lowell's Study Windows, 257

Tennyson (Hallam, now Lord), his Song of Brunanburh, ii. 206

--(Septimus), i. 152

Thackeray (Miss), afterwards Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, her story in the
Cornhill, ii. 82; her Old Kensington, 140; meets FitzGerald at the Royal
Academy Exhibition, 143

--(W. M.), at Cambridge with FitzGerald, i. 2; in Paris, 3, 38;
mentioned, 17, 30, 77, 116, 125, 158, 257, 311; illustrated Undine for
FitzGerald, 29; his Paris Sketch Book, 73; his second Funeral of
Napoleon, 79; his Irish Sketch Book, 141; contributes to Punch, 163; goes
to the East, 177; at Malta, 181; writes in Fraser's Magazine, 193;
Journal from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, 202; Mrs. Perkins's Ball, 214;
Vanity Fair, 238, 244; ii. 53; Pendennis, i. 244, 250, 255; ii. 51-53;
his illness, i. 250; Lectures on the Humourists, 272; Esmond, 275, 276;
goes to America, 279; letter of farewell to FitzGerald, 280; The
Newcomes, 288; ii. 50, 51; Lectures on the Georges, i. 317; edits the
Cornhill Magazine, ii. 13; his death, 50, etc.; his Roundabout Papers,
127; describes Humanity in its depths, 135, 190; his saying of Lamb, 198,
243; his song, 'Ho, Pretty Page,' set to music by FitzGerald, 207, 213

Thirlwall (Bishop), i. 73; his Letters, ii. 328

Thompson (W. H.), at Cambridge with FitzGerald, i. 2, 79; at the water
cure, 264; his letters, ii. 37; appointed Master of Trinity, 73, 74; his
marriage, 81, 88; his edition of Plato's Gorgias, 123-126

Tichborne Trial (the), ii. 134, 135, 159, 170

Ticknor's Memoirs, ii. 197, 200; his Spanish Literature, 198

Titian, pictures by, i. 107, 108, 141; ii. 151

Tom the Piper, ii. 240

Trench (Mrs.), her Journal, ii. 23, 24, 144

--(R. C.), i. 43; his Sabbation, 54; Study of Words, 274; his translation
of Calderon's Life's a Dream, 307; ii. 287

Trinity College, Cambridge, the Hall, ii. 161; the Chapel, _ib._

Trollope (Anthony), his Barchester Towers, ii. 14; Can you forgive her?
71; He knows he was right, 152; the Eustace Diamonds, 159

Turner (Dawson), i. 198

Twalmley, The Great, ii. 198, 228

VANDENHOFF, as Macbeth, i. 31; as Iago, 43; in the Antigone, 188

Vandyke, ii. 151

Vaughan (Henry), Silex Scintillans, i. 46

Venables (G. S.), i. 257

Verdi, ii. 151

Vestiges of Creation, i. 186, 187

Vestris (Madame), ii. 120, 138

Virgil, his Georgics, i. 134; FitzGerald's love for, ii. 83, 88, 218

Voltaire's Pucelle, ii. 168; his saying of Habakkuk, 182

Volunteer Rifles, ii. 18, 22

WALPOLE (Horace), i. 276; his Letters, ii. 205; Carlyle's opinion of him,
206

Warburton (Bishop), Letters quoted, i. 52

--(Eliot), i. 189

Waterford's (Lady), Babes in the Wood, ii. 18

Waterloo, Battle of, ii. 286, 290

--Gallery, i. 63

Wesley's Journal, i. 292; ii. 59, 219, 254; story from, 110; Memorials of
his Family, 219; Southey's Life of, 220

Westminster Abbey, ii. 295

Wherstead, i. 28; ii. 231

White (James), i. 201

Wilkie (David), i. 39

Wilkinson (Mrs.), Jane FitzGerald, E. FitzGerald's sister, i. 147, 167,
170

--(Rev. J. B.), portrait by Laurence, i. 167, 170

Williams-Wynn (Miss), Memorials, ii. 237

Windham's Diary, ii. 84

Winsby Fight, i. 155, 160

Woburn Abbey, pictures at, i. 56

Woodberry (G. E.), his article on Crabbe in the Atlantic Monthly, ii. 281

Wordsworth (Dr. C.), Master of Trinity, ii. 194

--(W.), i. 18; and Tennyson, 36, 37; his Sonnets, 84, 87, 88; mentioned,
ii. 194, 195, 197;  Lowell's account of him, 199; his opinion of Crabbe,
283, 288

Wotton (Sir H.), quoted, i. 15

XENOPHON, i. 240

ZINCKE (Rev. Foster Barbam), ii. 149, 150, 231

Zoolus, account of, by Capt. Allen Gardiner, i. 64

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_




Footnotes:


{2}  See note on Omar Khayyam, stanza xviii.

{5}  See p. 2.

{13}  Article on 'British Novelists' in Fraser's Magazine, Jan. 1860.

{18}  Major Rolla Rouse of Melton.

{22}  His brother.

{23a}  Dean of Westminster and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin.

{23b}  Journal of Mrs. Trench, not then published.

{24}  In 1872 he wrote to me: 'I hope that others have remembered and
made note of A. T.'s sayings--which hit the nail on the head.  Had I
continued to be with him, I would have risked being called another Bozzy
by the thankless World; and have often looked in vain for a Note Book I
had made of such things.'

And again in 1876: 'He _said_, and I dare say, _says_ things to be
remembered: decisive Verdicts; which I hope some one makes note of: post
me memoranda.'

{25}  In Fraser's Magazine for June 1861, 'On Translating Homer.'

{27}  Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1860, pp 1-17; published
in 1861.

{29}  [In the book the AT is a symbol made of a capital A, with a small T
inside it with the bar of the T in the same position as the bar in the
A.--D.P.]

{30}  The Hon Stephen Spring Rice.

{34}  Sat. III. 254.

{35a}  Hermann's conjecture on Agam. 819.

{35b}  Sat. VI. 460.

{37}  As Greek Professor.

{40}  At Ely

{47a}  ?  Forty.

{47b}  The Cambridge Shakespeare.

{48a}  Purgatorio, xxiii.

{48b}  Euripides.

{50}  Thackeray died 24 Dec. 1863.

{55}  A copy by Laurence of his portrait of Thackeray.

{56a}  Gainsborough's sketch of Dupont which Laurence copied.

{56b}  Gainsborough, when dying, whispered to Reynolds, 'We are all going
to heaven, and Vandyke is of the party.'

{58}  By Professor Sellar in the Oxford Essays for 1855: reprinted in his
Roman Poets of the Republic, 1863.

{59a}  Late Archdeacon of Suffolk.

{59b}  VI. 556.

{61}  Pliny, Hist. Nat. ii. 5.  FitzGerald quotes only a part of the
passage in the first scene of The Mighty Magician.

{62a}  In June 1864.

{62b}  The third was probably the Agamemnon.

{63}  So by mistake for Woodbridge.

{68}  Probably, as I am informed by Mr. Mowbray Donne, 'that when Lord
Chatham met any Bishops he bowed so low that you could see the peak of
his nose between his legs.'

{69a}  Sappho, Fr. xlvi. (Gaisford).

{69b}  P. 308.

{74}  Quoted by the Scholiast on Theocritus, V. 65, and to be found in
the editions of the Paroemiographi Graeci by Gaisford and Leutsch.

{77}  Francis Duncan, Rector of West Chelborough.

{78a}  See note, p. 110.

{78b}  OEd. Tyr. 1076.

{78c}  OEd. Col. 607.

{86}  Sophocles, Ajax 674, 5.

{87a}  Not Jocasta, but Alcmene.

{87b}  Arist. Poet. 13, 10.

{88}  Her son, the Suffolk Poet, says that in the decline of her life she
'observed to a relative with peculiar emphasis, that "to meet Winter, Old
Age, and Poverty, was like meeting three great giants."'  For 'Sickness'
FitzGerald at first had written 'Old Age.'

{91}  Article in the Athenaeum of 2nd Feb. 1867 on Donne's edition of the
Correspondence of George III. and Lord North.

{97a}  Delivered 23rd Oct. 1867.

{97b}  By Emanuel Deutsch.

{102}  By Leslie Stephen.

{104}  Who said that the description of the boat race with which
Euphranor ends was one of the most beautiful pieces of English prose.

{105}  Referring to The Two Generals, Letters and Literary Remains, vol.
ii. p. 483.

{107}  See p. 105.

{109}  The Agamemnon.

{110}  FitzGerald frequently referred to a story from Wesley's Journal,
which he quotes in Polonius, p. LXX.  'A gentleman of large fortune,
while we were seriously conversing, ordered a servant to throw some coals
on the fire.  A puff of smoke came out.  He threw himself back in his
chair, and cried out, "O Mr. Wesley, these are the crosses I meet with
every day!"'

{111}  The Holy Grail.

{116a}  Printed in the East Anglian Notes and Queries for 1869 and 1870.

{116b}  The partnership was dissolved in June 1870.

{118a}  Ten years before, Nov. 2, 1860, FitzGerald wrote to his old
friend, the late Mr. W. E. Crowfoot of Beccles: 'I have been reading with
interest some French Memoirs towards the end of the last century: when
the French were a cheerful, ingenious, witty, trifling people; they had
not yet tasted of the Blood of the Revolution, which really seems to me
to have altered their character.  The modern French Novels exhibit
Vengeance as a moving Virtue: even toward one another: can we suppose
they think less well of it towards us?  In this respect they are really
the most barbarous People of Europe.

{118b}  29 Oct. 1870.

{120}  Gilbert's Palace of Truth.

{122a}  Edwin Edwards.

{122b}  Cornhill, June 1870.  'A Clever Forgery,' by Dr. W. Pole.

{127}  Thirty Years' Musical Recollections, vol. i. p. 162.

{128}  In 1879 he wrote to Professor Cowell, 'O, Sir Walter will fly over
all their heads "come aquila" still!'

{133}  Not 'Yaffil' but 'yaffingale.'

{135a}  In Hamlet, ii. 2. 337, 'Whose lungs are tickle o' the sear.'

{135b}  'Read rascal in the motions of his back,
And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee.'--_Sea Dreams_.

{136}  Thus far written in pencil by Carlyle himself.  The rest of the
letter except the signature and postscript is in Mr. Froude's hand.

{139a}  This appears to be a mistake.

{139b}  At Whitsuntide.

{139c}  As Thackeray used to call Carlyle.

{140}  Old Kensington.

{141a}  In 1873 he wrote to Miss Thackeray,

   'Only yesterday I lighted upon some mention of your Father in the
   Letters of that mad man of Genius Morton, who came to a sudden and
   terrible end in Paris not long after.  He was a good deal in Coram
   Street, and no one admired your Father more, nor made so sure of his
   '_doing something_' at last, so early as 1842.  A Letter of Jan. 22/45
   says: "I hear of Thackeray at Rome.  Once there, depend upon it, he
   will stay there some time.  There is something glutinous in the soil
   of Rome, that, like the sweet Dew that lies on the lime-leaf, ensnares
   the Butterfly Traveller's foot."  Which is not so bad, is it?  And
   again, still in England, and harping on Rome, whose mere name, he
   says, "moves the handle of the Pump of Tears in him" (one of his
   grotesque fancies), he suddenly bethinks him (Feb. 4/45).  "This is
   the last day of Carnival, Thackeray is walking down the Corso with his
   hands in his Breeches pockets: stopping to look at some little Child.
   At night, millions of Moccoletti, dasht about with endless Shouts and
   Laughter, etc."'

{144}  Byron's verses on Rogers.

{145}  In Fraser's Magazine, May 1870.

{146a}  Inferno, Canto V. 127.

{146b}  F. C. Brooke of Ufford.

{146c}  Probably a frontispiece to Omar Khayyam which was never used.

{147}  Roqueplan, La Vie Parisienne.

{148}  Salons Celebres, p. 97, ed. 1882.

{149a}  Q. Rev. No. LXVII. p. 216.

{149b}  Wherstead.

{150}  Euphranor.

{153}  31st March, when the letter was probably finished.

{160}  Cent. III. section 238.

{161}  In June 1871 he wrote to me, 'One Improvement I persist in
recommending for your Chapel: but no one will do it.  Instead of
Lucretius' line (which might apply to Shakespeare, etc.) at the foot of
Newton's Statue, you should put the first words of Bacon's Novum Organum,
(Homo) 'Naturae Minister et Interpres': which eminently becomes Newton,
as he stands, with his Prism; and connects him with his great Cambridge
Predecessor, who now (I believe) sits in the Ante-Chapel along with him.'

{162}  Agamemnon.

{163a}  Written in French, 22 July 1873.

{163b}  The Family of Love, vol. viii p. 43.

{163c}  Ibid. p. 40.

{164}  Tacitus, by W. B. Donne, in Ancient Classics for English Readers,
1873.

{165}  Ann. XIV. 10.

{169}  In January 1874, Donne wrote to Thompson, 'You probably know that
our friend E. F. G. has been turned out of his long inhabited lodgings by
a widow weighing at least fourteen stone, who is soon to espouse, and
sure to rule over, his landlord, who weighs at most nine stone--"impar
congressus."  "Ordinary men and Christians" would occupy a new and
commodious house which they have built, and which, in this case, you
doubtless have seen.  But the FitzGeralds are not _ordinary_ men, however
_Christian_ they may be, and our friend is now looking for an alien home
for himself, his books, pictures, and other "rich moveables."'

{170}  See Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. I. 137.

{171}  A copy of Pickersgill's portrait of Crabbe.

{172}  Dryburgh.

{173}  Dryburgh.

{174}  See the Chronicle of the Drum.

{184}  Chapter IV.

{187}  Tales of the Hall.  Book X. (vol. vi. p. 246).

{188a}  Carlyle's niece, now Mrs. Alexander Carlyle.

{188b}  To his nephew Tom, meaning that he should outlive him.  Letter of
Jeremiah Markland (Bowyer's Miscellaneous Tracts, ed. Nichols, p. 521).

{189}  That his boat was intentionally run down by a felucca.

{193}  Among my Books.  First series.

{196}  June 10, 1876, was a Saturday.  Perhaps the letter was finished on
Sunday.

{197}  In 1851.  Wordsworth's Letters are in the second volume, pp. 145-
173.

{198}  Boswell's Johnson, VIII. 183.

{199}  Haydon's Memoirs, III. 199.

{200}  Archdeacon Groome, Rector of Monk Soham, Suffolk.

{202}  Suffolk for 'donkey.'

{206}  The Song of Brunanburh by Hallam Tennyson.  Contemporary Review,
Nov. 1876.

{208}  In 1863 he wrote to George Crabbe,--

   'I am now reading Clarissa Harlowe, for about the fifth time: I dare
   say you wouldn't have patience to read it once: indeed the first time
   is the most trying.  It is a very wonderful, and quite original, and
   unique, Book: but almost intolerable from its Length and
   Sentimentality.'

{213}  See p. 207.

{217}  In Crabbe's Borough.

{219a}  _Essais_, i. 18.

{219b}  Lucr. iv. 76-80.

{220a}  Formerly Professor of Sanskrit in King's College, London.

{220b}  On English Adjectives in -able, with special reference to
reliable, 1877.

{224}  The Hon. J. R. Lowell, formerly United States Minister at the
Courts of Madrid and St. James'.

{231}  Chap. xlv.

{234}  Melanges et Lettres.

{237}  Memorials of Charlotte Williams-Wynn, p. 59.

{238}  Criticisms, and Elucidations of Catullus, by H. A. J. Munro.

{239}  Of Lamb's Life, mentioned in the following letter.

{240a}  Book II.  Song 2.

{240b}  Endymion, i. 26, etc.

{240c}  FitzGerald's memory was at fault here.  The lines are from
Tennyson's Gardener's Daughter.

{242}  Charles Lamb.  A calendar of his life in four pages.

{243}  That to Bernard Barton about Mitford's vases, December 1, 1824.

{247}  A calendar of Charles Lamb's Life.

{251}  Not in the Essays but in the Colours of Good and Evil, 4: 'For as
he sayth well, _Not to resolve is to resolve_.'

{252}  See Lamb's Verses to Ayrton (Letters, ed. Ainger, II. 2).

{253}  The Only Darter, A Suffolk Clergyman's Reminiscence.  Written in
the Suffolk Dialect by Archdeacon Groome under the name of John Dutfen.

{254}  Wesley's Journal, 30 May 1786, and 22 May 1788.

{255a}  Edwin Edwards.

{255b}  Lowestoft.

{256a}  These two lines are crossed out.

{256b}  Tales of the Hall, Book XI. vol. vi., p. 284, quoted from memory.

{259a}  This was never finished.

{259b}  Lord Carnarvon.

{267}  Tales of the Hall, Book X.

{270}  A year before, FitzGerald wrote to Professor Cowell:

   'I was trying yesterday to recover Gray's Elegy, as you had been doing
   down here at Christmas, with shut Eyes.  But I had to return to the
   Book: and am far from perfect yet: though I leave out several Stanzas;
   reserving one of the most beautiful which Gray omitted.  Plenty of
   faults still: but one doats on almost every line, every line being a
   Proverb now.'

{271}  Tales of the Hall, Book XIV. (vol. vii. p. 89).

{272}  Tales of the Hall, Book XIV. (vol. vii. p. 89).

{273}  On Foot in Spain, by J. S. Campion, 1879.

{274}  From Calderon's _Cada uno para si_, the seven lines beginning
'Bien dijo uno, que su planta' (Comedias, ed. Keil, iv. 731).

{277}  Edwards died on Sept. 15.  'Those two and their little Dunwich in
Summer were among my Pleasures; and will be, I doubt, among my Regrets.'
So he wrote me at the end of 1877.

{280a}  C. K. of Punch.

{280b}  Now in my possession.

{281}  In the Atlantic Monthly for May 1880, 'A Neglected Poet,' by G. E.
Woodberry.

{282}  Tales of the Hall, Book IV. vol. vi. p. 71.

{283}  Tales of the Hall, Book III. vol. vi. p. 61.

{285a}  From the Life of Lord Houghton, by Mr. Wemyss Reid, ii. 406, and
by his kind permission inserted here.

{285b}  Printed 1881.

{286}  FitzGerald was reading Lord Seaton's Regiment (the 52nd Light
Infantry) at the Battle of Waterloo, by the Rev. W. Leeke, who as Ensign
Leeke carried the colours of the regiment on the 18th of June.

{290}  Edwin Edwards.

{293}  A sheltered path in the field next his garden, where he walked for
hours together.

{302}  Spedding died on March 9.

{303}  The death of Spedding.

{308a}  Now (1893) the Dowager Lady Tennyson.

{308b}  See p. 219.

{309}  Printed in the Life of Archdeacon Allen, by Prebendary Grier, pp.
35-37.

{311}  In Macmillan's Magazine for April 1881.

{313}  Mrs. Kemble was at Leamington.

{317}  Euphranor.

{322}  Nearly two years before, 21st March 1880, Fitzgerald wrote to
Professor Cowell: 'My dear Donne (who also was one object of my going)
seemed to me feebler in Body and Mind than when I saw him in October: I
need not say, the same Gentleman.  Mrs. Kemble says that he, more than
any one she has known, is the man to do what Boccaccio's Hero of the
Falcon did.'  This was said, Mrs. Kemble informs me, by her sister Mrs.
Sartoris.

{323}  Keene recommended FitzGerald to read Roger North's Memoir of
Music.  'You will see in North,' he says, 'that Old Rowley was a bit of a
musician and sang "a plump Bass."  Can't you hear him?'  His question to
me was about the meaning of the word 'fastously,' which is not a musical
term, but described the conduct of an Italian violinist, Nicolai Matteis,
who gave himself airs, 'and behaved fastously' or haughtily.  Barrow uses
both 'fastuous' and 'fastuously.'

{324a}  The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, published in 1682.

{324b}  A volume of 17th century pamphlets, containing among others
Howell's Dodona's Grove, given me by Archdeacon Groome.

{326}  Edward Marlborough FitzGerald.

{327}  Euphranor, referred to in the following letters.

{328}  Now (1893) Lord Tennyson.

{330a}  Virgil's Garden, printed in Temple Bar for April, 1882.

{330b}  Longfellow died 26th March, and Emerson 27th April, 1882.

{337}  20 June, 1882.

{342}  A newspaper cutting: 'ALDEBURGH.  THE STORM.  On Tuesday evening
the tide ran over the Promenade, in many places the river and sea
meeting.  The cattle are all sent inland, and all the houses at Slaughden
are evacuated.'



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