The opening of that burial-heap blazes strangely in my thoughts: these are the very jawbones that were clenched together in deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years ago! It brings the matter home to one, with a strange veracity,—as if for the first time one saw it to be no fable and theory but a dire fact. I will beg for a tooth and a bullet; authenticated by your own eyes and word of honour!—Our Scotch friend too, making turnip manure of it, he is part of the Picture. I understand almost all the Netherlands battlefields have already given up their bones to British husbandly; why not the old English next? Honour to thrift. If of 5000 wasted men, you can make a few usable turnips, why, do it!

The more sketches and details you can contrive to send me, the better. I want to know for one thing whether there is any house on Cloisterwell; what house that was that I saw from the slope of Naseby height (Mill-hill, I suppose), and fancied to be Dust Hill Farm? It must lie about North by West from Naseby Church, perhaps near a mile off. You say, one cannot see Dust Hill at all, much less any farm house of Dust Hill, from that Naseby Height?

But why does the Obelisk stand there? It might as well stand at Charing Cross; the blockhead that it is! I again wish I had wings: alas, I wish many things; that the gods would but annihilate Time and Space, which would include all things!

In great haste, Yours most truly,

T. CARLYLE.

The following letters will partly supply the place of the missing letter to Carlyle.

To Bernard Barton.

LONDON. Friday, Septr. [16] 1842.

DEAR BARTON,

Have you supposed me dead or what? Well, so far from it, I have grown more fat than ever, which is quite as much reason for not writing. I have been staying at Naseby, and, having come up here for two days, return to that place by railroad to-morrow. I went to see Carlyle last night. He had just returned from the neighbourhood of Bury. He is full of Cromwell, and, funny enough, went over from Rugby to Naseby this spring with poor Dr. Arnold. They saw nothing, and walked over what was not the field of battle. I want him to go down with me: but he thinks it would be too expensive. So I have engaged to collect what matter I can for him on the spot. At the beginning of October I expect to be back in East Anglia for the winter. Frail is human virtue. I thought I had quite got over picture dealing, when lo! walking in Holborn this day I looked into a shop just to shew the strength of my virtue, and fell. That accursed Battle Piece—I have bought it—and another picture of dead chaffinches, which Mr. C[hurchyard] will like, it is so well done: I expect you to give high prices for these pictures—mind that: and begin to economize in household matters. Leave off sugar in tea and make all your household do so. Also write to me at Naseby, Welford, Northampton. That's my direction—such a glorious country, Barton. I wrote you a letter a week ago, but never posted it. So now goodbye. I shall bring down the Chaffinches with me to Suffolk. Trade has been very bad, the dealers tell me. My fruit Girl still hangs up at a window—an unpleasant sight. Nobody is so hard set as to bid for her.

To W. F. Pollock.

NASEBY, WELFORD, NORTHAMPTON, Septr. 20/42.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . London was very close and nasty: so I am glad to get down here: where, however, I am not (as at present proposed) to stay long: my Father requiring my services in Suffolk early in October. Laurence has made a sort of promise to come and see me here next Saturday: I wanted him to come down with me while the weather was fine. The place is very desert, but a battle was probably fought here 200 years ago, as an Obelisk planted by my Papa on the wrong site intimates. Poor Carlyle got into sad error from that deluding Obelisk: which Liston used to call (in this case with truth) an Obstacle. I am afraid Carlyle will make a mad mess of Cromwell and his Times: what a poor figure Fairfax will cut! I am very tired of these heroics; and I can worship no man who has but a square inch of brains more than myself. I think there is but one Hero: and that is the Maker of Heroes.

Here I am reading Virgil's delightful Georgics for the first time. They really attune perfectly well with the plains and climate of Naseby. Valpy (whose edition I have) cannot quite follow Virgil's plough—in its construction at least. But the main acts of agriculture seem to have changed very little, and the alternation of green and corn crops is a good dodge. And while I heard the fellows going out with their horses to plough as I sat at breakfast this morning, I also read—

Libra die somnique pares ubi fecerit horas, Et medium luci atque umbris jam dividit orbem, Exercete, viri, tauros, serite hordea campis Usque sub extremum brumae intractabilis imbrem. {134}

One loves Virgil somehow.

To Bernard Barton.

[NASEBY], Septr. 22/42.

MY DEAR BARTON,

The pictures are left all ready packed up in Portland Place, and shall come down with me, whenever that desirable event takes place. In the mean while here I am as before: but having received a long and interesting letter from Carlyle asking information about this Battle field, I have trotted about rather more to ascertain names of places, positions, etc. After all he will make a mad book. I have just seen some of the bones of a dragoon and his horse who were found foundered in a morass in the field—poor dragoon, much dismembered by time: his less worthy members having been left in the owner's summer-house for the last twenty years have disappeared one by one: but his skull is kept safe in the hall: not a bad skull neither: and in it some teeth yet holding, and a bit of the iron heel of his boot, put into the skull by way of convenience. This is what Sir Thomas Browne calls 'making a man act his Antipodes.' {135} I have got a fellow to dig at one of the great general graves in the field: and he tells me to-night that he has come to bones: to-morrow I will select a neat specimen or two. In the mean time let the full harvest moon wonder at them as they lie turned up after lying hid 2400 revolutions of hers. Think of that warm 14th of June when the Battle was fought, and they fell pell-mell: and then the country people came and buried them so shallow that the stench was terrible, and the putrid matter oozed over the ground for several yards: so that the cattle were observed to eat those places very close for some years after. Every one to his taste, as one might well say to any woman who kissed the cow that pastured there.

Friday, 23rd. We have dug at a place, as I said, and made such a trench as would hold a dozen fellows: whose remains positively make up the mould. The bones nearly all rotted away, except the teeth which are quite good. At the bottom lay the form of a perfect skeleton: most of the bones gone, but the pressure distinct in the clay: the thigh and leg bones yet extant: the skull a little pushed forward, as if there were scanty room. We also tried some other reputed graves, but found nothing: indeed it is not easy to distinguish what are graves from old marl-pits, etc. I don't care for all this bone-rummaging myself: but the identification of the graves identifies also where the greatest heat of the battle was. Do you wish for a tooth?

As I began this antiquarian account in a letter to you, so I have finished it, that you may mention it to my Papa, who perhaps will be amused at it. Two farmers insisted on going out exploring with me all day: one a very solid fellow, who talks like the justices in Shakespeare: but who certainly was inspired in finding out this grave: the other a Scotchman full of intelligence, who proposed the flesh-soil for manure for turnips. The old Vicar, whose age reaches halfway back to the day of the Battle, stood tottering over the verge of the trench. Carlyle has shewn great sagacity in guessing at the localities from the vague descriptions of contemporaries: and his short pasticcio of the battle is the best I have seen. {137} But he will spoil all by making a demi- god of Cromwell, who certainly was so far from wise that he brought about the very thing he fought to prevent—the restoration of an unrestricted monarchy.

To S. Laurence.

NASEBY, Septr. 28/42.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

I am sorry you did not come, as the weather has become fine, and this wild wide country looks well on these blowing days, with flying shadows running over the distance. Carlyle wrote me a long letter of questions concerning the field of Battle, its traditions, etc. So I have trotted about, examined the natives, and answered a great many of his queries as fully, but as shortly, as I could. However I suppose he growls superciliously at my letter, which was necessarily rather a long one. I have also, in company with two farmers, opened one of the reputed graves in which the killed were said to be reposited: and there sure enough we found decayed bones, skulls, arms, legs, etc., and very sound teeth—the only sound part. For many bodies put together corrupt one another of course, and 200 years have not contributed to their preservation. People had often dug about the field before and found nothing; and we tried two or three other spots with no success. I am going to dig once more in a place where tradition talks of a large burial of men and horses. . . .

How long I shall yet be here I know not: but not long I doubt. I dare say I shall pass through London on my way to Suffolk: and then perhaps see the trans-Atlantic Secretary. {138}

Don't trouble yourself to write answers to my gossip. I have just been at our Church where we have had five clergymen to officiate: two in shovel-hats. Our Vicar is near ninety; we have two curates: and an old Clergyman and his Archdeacon son came on a visit. The son having a shovel-hat, of course the Father could not be left behind. Shovel-hats (you know) came into use with the gift of Tongs.

To John Allen.

[BOULGE COTTAGE.] Nov. 18/42.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

. . . Do you know that I am really going to look out for some permanent abode, which I think I am well qualified to decide on now. But in this very judgment I may be most of all mistaken. I do not love London enough to pitch my tent there: Woodbridge, Ipswich, or Colchester—won't one of them do? . . .

I have been reading Burton's Anatomy {139} lately: a captivating book certainly. That story of his going to the bridge at Oxford to listen to the bargemen's slang, etc., he reports of the old Democritus, his prototype: so perhaps biographers thought it must be Burton's taste also. Or perhaps Burton took to doing it after example. I cannot help fancying that I see the foundation (partly) of Carlyle's style in Burton: one passage quite like part of Sartor Resartus. Much of Barton's Biography may be picked up out of his own introduction to the Anatomy. Maurice's Introductory Lecture I shall be very glad to have. I do not fancy I should read his Kingdom of Christ, should I? You know.

I have had bad cold and cough which still hang about me: this damp cottage is not good for a cure. . . . And now goodbye.

To F. Tennyson.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES. [? 1843.]

DEAR FREDERIC,

I am glad you are back, and perhaps sorry. But glad let it be, for I shall be in London, as proposed, in another fortnight—more or less—and shall pig there in a garret for two months. We will go to picture sales and buy bad pictures: though I have scarce money left. But I am really at last going to settle in some spooney quarters in the country, and would fain carry down some better forms and colours to put about me. I cannot get the second or third best: but I can get the imitations of the best: and that is enough for me.

What is become of Alfred? He never writes—nor is heard of.

Your letter found me poring over Harrington's Oceana: a long-shelved book—its doctrine of Government I am no judge of: but what English those fellows wrote! I cannot read the modern mechanique after them. 'This free-born Nation lives not upon the dole or Bounty of One Man, but distributing her Annual Magistracies and Honours with her own hand is herself King People.' Harrington must be a better writer than Milton. One finds books of this kind in these country houses: and it is pleasant to look them over at midnight in the kitchen, where I retire to smoke. . . .

Farewell till I see you one of these days.

To S. Laurence.

DUBLIN, July 11/43

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

We got here this morning; most of us sick, but not I: not evidently sick, I mean. Here the sun shines, and people go about in their cars or stand idle, just the same as ever. 'Repeal' is faintly chalked on a wall here and there. I have been to see a desperate collection of pictures by the Royal Academy: among them old unsaleables by Maclise and Uwins.

What I write for however is to say that the first volume of Titmarsh's Ireland is at 39 Portland Place; and that I wish you would ask for it there and get it. Keep the two volumes for a time. It is all true. I ordered a bath here when I got in: the waiter said it was heated to 90 degrees, but it was scalding: he next locked me up in the room instead of my locking him out.

Keep an eye on the little Titian, and I shall really make the venture of borrowing 30 pounds to invest in it. Tell Rochard you must have it. I may never be able to get a bit of Titian in my life again: and I shall doubtless learn to admire it properly in time.

To F. Tennyson.

HALVERSTOWN, KILCULLEN, IRELAND. [? July 1843.]

DEAR FREDERIC . . .

. . . You would rave at this climate which is wetter far than that of England. There are the Wicklow hills (mountains we call them) in the offing—quite high enough. In spite of my prejudice for a level, I find myself every day unconsciously verging towards any eminence that gives me the freest view of their blue ranges. One's thoughts take wing to the distance. I fancy that moderately high hills (like these) are the ticket—not to be domineered over by Mont Blancs, etc. But this may be only a passing prejudice.

We hear much less of Repeal here than in London: and people seem amused at the troops and waggons of gunpowder that are to be met now and then upon the roads. . .

To Bernard Barton.

BALLYSAX, {142a} KILCULLEN, August, 17/43

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . That old Suffolk comes over here sometimes, as I say; and greets one's eyes with old familiar names: Sales at Yoxford, Aldeburgh, etc., regattas at Lowestoft, and at Woodbridge. I see Major Moor {142b} turning the road by the old Duke of York; the Deben winding away in full tide to the sea; and numberless little pictures of this kind.

I am going the day after to-morrow to Edgeworth's, for a week, it may be a fortnight before I set sail for England. Where shall I pitch my tent? that is the question. Whither shall those treasures of ancient art descend, and be reposited there for ever?

I have been looking over the old London Magazine. Lamb's papers come in delightfully: read over the Old China the night you get this, and sympathize with me. The account of the dish of green pease, etc., is the true history of lawful luxury. Not Johnson nor Adam Smith told so much. It is founded not on statistics but on good humanity.

We have at last delightful weather, and we enjoy it. Yesterday we went to Pool-a-Phooka, the Leap of the Goblin Horse. What is that, do you suppose? Why, a cleft in the mountains down and through which the river Liffey (not very long born from the earth) comes leaping and roaring. Cold veal pies, champagne, etc., make up the enchantment. We dabbled in the water, splashed each other, forded the river, climbed the rocks, laughed, sang, eat, drank, and were roasted, and returned home, the sun sinking red.

(A pen and ink sketch.)

This is not like Pool-a-Phooka.

To F. Tennyson.

IRELAND, August 31/43.

DEAR FREDERIC,

. . . I set sail from Dublin to-morrow night, bearing the heartfelt regrets of all the people of Ireland with me.

Where is my dear old Alfred? Sometimes I intend to send him a quotation from a book: but do not perform the same. Are you packing up for Italy? I had a pleasant week with Edgeworth. He farms, and is a justice: and goes to sleep on the sofa of evenings. At odd moments he looks into Spinoza and Petrarch. People respect him very much in those parts. Old Miss Edgeworth is wearing away: she has a capital bright soul which even now shines quite youthfully through her faded carcase. . . . I had the weakest dream the other night that ever was dreamt. I thought I saw Thomas Frognall Dibdin—and that was all. Tell this to Alfred. Carlyle talks of coming to see Naseby: but I leave him to suit the weather to his taste.

BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE, Sunday, Dec. 10/1843.

DEAR FREDERIC,

Either you wrote me word yourself, or some one told me, that you meant to winter at Florence. So I shall direct to the Poste Restante there. You see I am not settled at the Florence of Suffolk, called Ipswich, yet: but I am perhaps as badly off; being in this most dull country house quite alone; a grey mist, that seems teeming with half formed snow, all over the landscape before my windows. It is also Sunday morning: ten of the clock by the chime now sounding from the stables. I have fed on bread and milk (a dreadfully opaque diet) and I await the morning Church in humble hope. It will begin in half an hour. We keep early hours in the country. So you will be able exactly to measure my aptitude and fullness for letter writing by the quantity written now, before I bolt off for hat, gloves, and prayerbook. I always put on my thickest great coat to go to our Church in: as fungi grow in great numbers about the communion table. And now, to turn away from Boulge, I must tell you that I went up to London a month ago to see old Thackeray, who had come there to have his eyes doctored. I stayed with him ten days and we were as usual together. Alfred came up 'in transitu' from Boxley to Cheltenham; he looked, and said he was, ill: I have never seen him so hopeless: and I am really anxious to know how he is. . . . I remember the days of the summer when you and I were together, quarrelling and laughing—these I remember with pleasure. Our trip to Gravesend has left a perfume with me. I can get up with you on that everlastingly stopping coach on which we tried to travel from Gravesend to Maidstone that Sunday morning: worn out with it, we got down at an inn, and then got up on another coach—and an old smiling fellow passed us holding out his hat—and you said, 'That old fellow must go about as Homer did'—and numberless other turns of road and humour, which sometimes pass before me as I lie in bed. . . . Now before I turn over, I will go and see about Church, as I hear no bell, pack myself up as warmly as I can, and be off. So good-bye till twelve o'clock.—'Tis five minutes past twelve by the stable clock: so I saw as I returned from Church through the garden. Parson and Clerk got through the service see saw like two men in a sawpit. In the garden I see the heads of the snowdrops and crocuses just out of the earth. Another year with its same flowers and topics to open upon us. Shenstone somewhere sings, {146a}

Tedious again to mark the drizzling day, Again to trace the same sad tracts of snow: Or, lull'd by vernal airs, again survey The selfsame hawthorn bud, and cowslips blow.

I rely on you and all your family sympathizing in this. So do I sometimes: anyhow, people complimenting each other on the approach of Spring and such like felicitations are very tiresome. Our very year is of a paltry diameter. But this is not proper language for Mark Tapley, whose greatest bore just now is having a bad pen; but the letter is ended. So he is jolly and yours as ever.

To S. Laurence.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Decr. 21/43.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

I hope you got safe and sound to London: as I did to this place yesterday. Those good Tetter people! I have got an attachment to them somehow. I left Jane {146b} in a turmoil as to which picture of W[ilkinson] she was to take. I advised her to take a dose of Time, which always operates so gently.

I have been down to Woodbridge to-day and had a long chat with Churchyard, whom I wish you had seen, as also his Gainsborough sketches. He is quite clear as to Gainsborough's general method, which was (he says) to lay all in (except the sky, of course) with pure colour, quite unmixed with white. The sketch he has is certainly so; but whether it ever could have been wrought up into a deep finish, I don't know. C. says yes it could: that Gainsborough began nearly all his pictures so. He has tried it over and over again (he says) and produced exactly the same effect with pure colour, laid on very thin over a light brown ground: asphaltum and blue producing just such a green as many of the trees in this sketch are of. The sky put in afterwards.

He thinks this the great secret of landscape painting. He shewed me the passage quoted by Burnet {147} from Rubens' maxims (where and what are they?) 'Begin by painting in your shadows lightly, taking care that no white be suffered to glide into them—it is the poison of a picture except in the lights. If ever your shadows are corrupted by the introduction of this baneful colour, your tones will no longer be warm and transparent, but heavy and leaden. It is not the same in the lights: they may be loaded with colour as much as you think proper.'

Here is a technical letter, you see, from a man who is no artist, and very ignorant, as you think, I dare say. Try a head in this way. You have tried a dozen, you say. Very well then.

I will send up your cloak, which is barely bigger than a fig leaf, when I can. On Saturday I give supper to B. Barton and Churchyard. I wish you could be with us. We are the chief wits of Woodbridge. And one man has said that he envies our conversations! So we flatter each other in the country.

* * * * *

Of FitzGerald's way of life at this time I have the following notes which were given me by the late Rev. George Crabbe, Rector of Merton, the grandson of the poet, at whose house he died.

'FitzGerald was living at Boulge Cottage when I first knew him: a thatched cottage of one storey just outside his Father's Park. No one was, I think, resident at the Hall. His mother would sometimes be there a short time, and would drive about in a coach and four black horses. This would be in 1844, when he was 36. He used to walk by himself, slowly, with a Skye terrier. I was rather afraid of him. He seemed a proud and very punctilious man. I think he was at this time going often of an evening to Bernard Barton's. He did not come to us, except occasionally, till 1846. He seemed to me when I first saw him much as he was when he died, only not stooping: always like a grave middle-aged man: never seemed very happy or light-hearted, though his conversation was most amusing sometimes. His cottage was a mile from Bredfield. He was very fond, I think, of my Father; though they had several coolnesses which I believe were all my Father's fault, who took fancies that people disliked him or were bored by him. E. F. G. had in his cottage an old woman to wait on him, Mrs. Faiers; a very old-fashioned Suffolk woman. He was just as careful not to make her do anything as he was afterwards with Mrs. Howe. {149} He would never ring the bell, if there was one, of which I am not sure. Sometimes he would give a little dinner—my Father, Brooke, B. Barton, Churchyard—everything most hospitable, but not comfortable.

'In 1846 and 1847 he does not seem to have come much to Bredfield. Perhaps he was away a good deal. He was often away, visiting his mother, or W. Browne, or in London, or at the Kerriches'. In 1848, 1849, and 1850 he was a great deal at Bredfield, generally dropping in about seven o'clock, singing glees with us, and then joining my Father over his cigar, and staying late and often sleeping. He very often arranged concerted pieces for us to sing, in four parts, he being tenor. He sang very accurately but had not a good voice.

'While E. F. G. was at Boulge, he always got up early, eat his small breakfast, stood at his desk reading or writing all the morning, eat his dinner of vegetables and pudding, walked with his Skye terrier, and then often finished the day by spending the evening with us or the Bartons. He did not visit with the neighbouring gentlefolks, as he hated a set dinner party.'

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, February 24/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I got your letter all right. But you did not tell me where to direct to you again; so I must send to the Poste Restante at Florence. I have also heard from Morton, to whom I despatched a letter yesterday: and now set about one to you. As you live in two different cities, one may write about the same things to both. You told me of the Arno being frozen, and even Italian noses being cold: he tells me the Spring is coming. I tell you that we have had the mildest winter known; but as good weather, when it does come in England, is always unseasonable, and as an old proverb says that a green Yule makes a fat kirk-yard, so it has been with us: the extraordinary fine season has killed heaps of people with influenza, debilitated others for their lives long, worried everybody with colds, etc. I have had three influenzas: but this is no wonder: for I live in a hut with walls as thin as a sixpence: windows that don't shut: a clay soil safe beneath my feet: a thatch perforated by lascivious sparrows over my head. Here I sit, read, smoke, and become very wise, and am already quite beyond earthly things. I must say to you, as Basil Montagu once said, in perfect charity, to his friends: 'You see, my dear fellows, I like you very much, but I continue to advance, and you remain where you are (you see), and so I shall be obliged to leave you behind me. It is no fault of mine.' You must begin to read Seneca, whose letters I have been reading: else, when you come back to England, you will be no companion to a man who despises wealth, death, etc. What are pictures but paintings—what are auctions but sales! All is vanity. Erige animum tuum, mi Lucili, etc. I wonder whether old Seneca was indeed such a humbug as people now say he was: he is really a fine writer. About three hundred years ago, or less, our divines and writers called him the divine Seneca; and old Bacon is full of him. One sees in him the upshot of all the Greek philosophy, how it stood in Nero's time, when the Gods had worn out a good deal. I don't think old Seneca believed he should live again. Death is his great resource. Think of the rocococity of a gentleman studying Seneca in the middle of February 1844 in a remarkably damp cottage.

I have heard from Alfred also, who hates his water life—[Greek text] he calls it—but hopes to be cured in March. Poor fellow, I trust he may. He is not in a happy plight, I doubt. I wish I lived in a pleasant country where he might like to come and stay with me—but this is one of the ugliest places in England—one of the dullest—it has not the merit of being bleak on a grand scale—pollard trees over a flat clay, with regular hedges. I saw a stanza in an old book which seemed to describe my condition rather—

Far from thy kyn cast thee: Wrath not thy neighbour next thee, In a good corn country rest thee, And sit down, Robin, and rest thee. {152}

Funny advice, isn't it? I am glad to hear Septimus is so much improved. I beg you will felicitate him from me: I have a tacit regard of the true sort for him, as I think I must have for all of the Tennyson build. I see so many little natures about that I must draw to the large, even if their faults be on the same scale as their virtues. You and I shall I suppose quarrel as often as we meet: but I can quarrel and never be the worse with you. How we pulled against each other at Gravesend! You would stay—I wouldn't—then I would—then we did. Do you remember the face of that girl at the Bazaar, who kept talking to us and looking all round the room for fresh customers—a way women have—that is, a way of doing rather gracefully? Then the gentleman who sang Ivy green; a very extraordinary accentuation, it seemed to me: but I believe you admired it very much. Really, if these little excursions in the company of one's friends leave such a pleasant taste behind in the memory, one should court them oftener. And yet then perhaps the relish would grow less: it is the infrequency that gives them room to expand. I shall never get to Italy, that seems clear. My great travel this year will be to Carlisle. Quid prosit ista tua longa peregrinatio, etc. Travelling, you know, is a vanity. The soul remains the same. An amorem possis fugare, an libidinis exsiccari, an timorem mortis depellere? What then will you say to Pollock's being married! I hear he is to be. Ad matrimonium fugis? Miser! Scaevola noster dicere solebat, etc. Excuse my overflowing with philosophy. I am going this evening to eat toasted cheese with that celebrated poet Bernard Barton. And I must soon stir, and look about for my great coat, brush myself, etc. It blows a harrico, as Theodore Hook used to say, and will rain before I get to Woodbridge. Those poor mistaken lilac buds there out of the window! and an old Robin, ruffled up to his thickest, sitting mournfully under them, quite disheartened. For you must know the mild winter is just giving way to a remarkably severe spring. . . . I wish you were here to smoke a pipe with me. I play of evenings some of Handel's great choruses which are the bravest music after all. I am getting to the true John Bull style of music. I delight in Handel's Allegro and Penseroso. Do you know the fine pompous joyous chorus of 'These pleasures, Mirth, if thou canst give, etc.'? Handel certainly does in music what old Bacon desires in his Essay on Masques, 'Let the songs be loud and cheerful, not puling, etc.' One might think the Water music was written from this text.

* * * * *

About this time FitzGerald was engaged in collecting information for Carlyle on the subject of Cromwell's Lincolnshire campaign, and it is to this he refers in the following fragment of a letter to Mrs. Charlesworth and the letters which follow.

But as Carlyle is like to make good use of what we can find him, and make a good English Hero of Oliver—something of a Johnsonian figure—I hope you will try and pester these Lincoln ladies and gentlemen. I wrote to Livesey: who once, he says, had a butler named Oliver Cromwell. That is the nearest approach to history I make through him.

My brother John, after being expected every day this week, wrote positively to say he could not come to day: and accordingly was seen to drive up to the Hall two hours ago. *

Believe me, dear Mrs. Charlesworth, yours thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

* N.B. I am not at the Hall: but in the Cottage. Pray give my compliments to all your party

March /44.

BOULGE [1844].

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

Contributions from the fens or anywhere else will be good. We must get out all from the Allenbys. I think I remember in Carlyle's notes that the hill in Winsby (where the farm house is) was the scene of a daring attack of Cromwell's: but my memory is bad. Your correspondent says that bones, spurs, and urns have been found there: the latter look rather as if the hill were of Roman note. I should like it to be clearly told, exactly where the relics were dug up: whether on the hill or on the level said to extend from the hill to the west. Mrs. Allenby's first letter says that was probably the field of battle: her son says the hill itself was. Also, exactly what the relics were. These two points are the chief I can see to need thorough sifting. I sent Carlyle the letter: he is now I dare say groaning over it. I have threatened to turn the correspondence entirely into his hands: so Miss Charlesworth may expect that. I go to town (I hope for a very short time) next week. John is yet here: we all like his wife much. Farewell. Yours ever thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

Poor old Mrs. Chaplin {155} is dead! I have found an old lady here to replace her.

BOULGE, Friday [1844].

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I am sorry for the trouble you have. But I must hope that all that is to be got from such good authority as the Allenbys will be got, as to Winsby. Slash Lane promises very well. From the Allenbys let us be content to reap Winsby field only: as it seems they once farmed it, and let us get as good an account as possible of the look of the field, Slash Lane, the records and traditions of the place, and what remains were dug up, and exactly where; for that generally shows where the stress of the battle was. It is best to keep people to one point: else they wander off into generalities: as for instance what the Lady tells of War Scythes hung up in Horncastle Church: which, cruel as Oliver was, we must refer back to an earlier warfare than his, I doubt. Pray thank Miss Charlesworth: and believe me yours ever,

E. FITZGERALD.

BOULGE, March 5/44.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I have heard again from Carlyle who has sent me, a letter from Dr. Cookson, which I am to burn or send, as I think best. Before I do so, I should be glad to speak to Miss Charlesworth on the matter again: and as my brother is going off on one of his comet excursions to-morrow (at least so he purposed an hour ago) I shall go with him to Ipswich, unless it snows, etc., and shall walk to Bramford. My humble request therefore is nothing more than that you will be so good as to lock up Miss C. till I have come and consulted as to what is best to be done: and how best to address this Doctor: whom I conclude she knows.

However, I only mean that if the day is pretty fair I may hope to find some of you at home: and Mr. Charlesworth well again.

Yours very truly,

E. FITZGERALD.

[19 CHARLOTTE STREET, RATHBONE PLACE,] LONDON, April 11/44.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I last night smoked a pipe with Carlyle. He has had two large packets from Dr. Cookson, who shows alacrity enough to do what is asked, and may turn up something. But he has chiefly spoken of Winsby: and your Allenbys had so well cleared all that matter up with their map, etc., that the Doctor was going over needless ground. I hope we may be as successful with some other field: or rather that Cookson will anticipate us and save us all trouble.

London is very hateful to me. I long to spread wing and fly into the kind clean air of the country. I see nobody in the streets half so handsome as Mr. Reynolds {157} of our parish: all clever, composed, satirical, selfish, well dressed. Here we see what the World is. I am sure a great City is a deadly Plague: worse than the illness so called that came to ravage it. I tried to persuade Carlyle to leave his filthy Chelsea, but he says his wife likes London. I get radishes to eat for breakfast of a morning: with them comes a savour of earth that brings all the delicious gardens of the world back into one's soul, and almost draws tears from one's eyes.

With renewed thanks believe me ever yours,

E. FITZGERALD.

To Bernard Barton.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., April 11/44.

DEAR BARTON,

I am still indignant at this nasty place London. Thackeray, whom I came up to see, went off to Brighton the night after I arrived, and has not re- appeared: but I must wait some time longer for him. Thank Miss Barton much for the kit; if it is but a kit: my old woman is a great lover of cats, and hers has just kitted, and a wretched little blind puling tabby lizard of a thing was to be saved from the pail for me: but if Miss Barton's is a kit, I will gladly have it: and my old lady's shall be disposed of—not to the pail. Oh rus, quando te aspiciam? Construe that, Mr. Barton.—I am going to send down my pictures to Boulge, if I can secure them: they are not quite secure at present. If they vanish, I snap my fingers at them, Magi and all—there is a world (alas!) elsewhere beyond pictures—Oh, oh, oh, oh—

I smoked a pipe with Carlyle yesterday. We ascended from his dining room carrying pipes and tobacco up through two stories of his house, and got into a little dressing room near the roof: there we sat down: the window was open and looked out on nursery gardens, their almond trees in blossom, and beyond, bare walls of houses, and over these, roofs and chimneys, and roofs and chimneys, and here and there a steeple, and whole London crowned with darkness gathering behind like the illimitable resources of a dream. I tried to persuade him to leave the accursed den, and he wished—but—but—perhaps he didn't wish on the whole.

When I get back to Boulge I shall recover my quietude which is now all in a ripple. But it is a shame to talk of such things. So Churchyard has caught another Constable. Did he get off our Debach boy that set the shed on fire? Ask him that. Can'st thou not minister to a mind diseased, etc.

A cloud comes over Charlotte Street and seems as if it were sailing softly on the April wind to fall in a blessed shower upon the lilac buds and thirsty anemones somewhere in Essex; or, who knows?, perhaps at Boulge. Out will run Mrs. Faiers, and with red arms and face of woe haul in the struggling windows of the cottage, and make all tight. Beauty Bob {159} will cast a bird's eye out at the shower, and bless the useful wet. Mr. Loder will observe to the farmer for whom he is doing up a dozen of Queen's Heads, that it will be of great use: and the farmer will agree that his young barleys wanted it much. The German Ocean will dimple with innumerable pin points, and porpoises rolling near the surface sneeze with unusual pellets of fresh water—

Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer cloud, Without our special wonder?

Oh this wonderful wonderful world, and we who stand in the middle of it are all in a maze, except poor Matthews of Bedford, who fixes his eyes upon a wooden Cross and has no misgiving whatsoever. When I was at his chapel on Good Friday, he called at the end of his grand sermon on some of the people to say merely this, that they believed Christ had redeemed them: and first one got up and in sobs declared she believed it: and then another, and then another—I was quite overset:—all poor people: how much richer than all who fill the London Churches. Theirs is the kingdom of Heaven!

This is a sad farrago. Farewell.

To Mrs. Charlesworth.

[27 April, 1844?]

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

Thank you over and over again for your letter. The last packet with sketches, etc., came all safe yesterday: and Carlyle is much pleased. We may say that Winsby Field is exhausted now. I should like however to have some sketch of the relics: the shape of the stone jugs: their size specified. The helmet could be identified with the military fashion of some reign, as represented in prints, pictures, etc. But on the whole, the Allenbys have done capitally: and so have you: and so have I: and so I hope will Carlyle one day. He begs seriously to thank you and the Allenbys.

He was much distressed at Dr. Cookson's death: {161} and said how he should feel it when he came to think of it alone. Such is the man: he will call all the wits in London dilettanti, etc., but let a poor fellow die, and the Scotch heart flows forth in tears.

If any one can be found to do half as much for Gainsborough (which was an important battle) as has been done for Winsby, why, the Lincolnshire campaign will be handsomely reported. At Grantham there is no such great interest, it appears.

I hope to get out of London to my poor old Boulge next week. I have seen all my friends so as to satisfy them that I am a duller country fellow than I was, and so we shall part without heart-breaking on either side. It is partly one's fault not to be up to the London mark: but as there is a million of persons in the land fully up to it, one has the less call to repent in that respect. I confess that Mr. Reynolds is a better sight to me than old rouged Lady Morgan and all such.

I hope it will not be long before I visit you at Bramford. In the mean while believe me with best regards to all your family, yours ever very truly,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., ETC. Saturday.

DEAR MRS. CHARLESWORTH,

I received your last packet just as I was setting off for Suffolk. I sent part of it to Carlyle. I enclose you what answer he makes me this morning. If Miss Charlesworth will take the pains to read his dispatch of Gainsboro' Fight, and can possibly rake out some information on the doubtful points, we shall help to lay that unquiet spirit of history which now disturbs Chelsea and its vicinity. Please to keep the paper safe: for it must have been a nuisance to write it.

I lament your renewed misfortune: but I cannot wonder at it. These things are not got rid of in a year. Isabella is in England with her husband, at Hastings.

Believe me yours ever thankfully,

E. FITZGERALD.

BOULGE, May 7/44.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, May 24/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I think you mean never to write to me again. But you should, for I enjoy your letters much for years after I have got them. They tell me all I shall know of Italy, beside many other good things. I received one letter from you from Florence, and as you gave me no particular direction, I wrote to you at the Poste Restante there. I am now inditing this letter on the same venture. As my location is much more permanent, I command you to respond to me the very day you get this, warmed into such faint inspiration as my turnip radiance can kindle. You have seen a turnip lantern perhaps. Well, here I continue to exist: having broken my rural vegetation by one month in London, where I saw all the old faces—some only in passing, however—saw as few sights as possible, leaving London two days before the Exhibition opened. This is not out of moroseness or love of singularity: but I really supposed there could be nothing new: and therefore the best way would [be] to come new to it oneself after three or four years absence. I see in Punch a humorous catalogue of supposed pictures; Prince Albert's favourite spaniel and bootjack, the Queen's Macaw with a Muffin, etc., by Landseer, etc., in which I recognize Thackeray's fancy. He is in full vigour play and pay in London, writing in a dozen reviews, and a score of newspapers: and while health lasts he sails before the wind. I have not heard of Alfred since March. . . . Spedding devotes his days to Lord Bacon in the British Museum: his nights to the usual profligacy. . . . My dear Frederic, you must select some of your poems and publish them: we want some bits of strong genuine imagination to help put to flight these—etc. Publish a book of fragments, if nothing else but single lines, or else the whole poems. When will you come to England and do it? I dare say I should have stayed longer in London had you been there: but the wits were too much for me. Not Spedding, mind: who is a dear fellow. But one finds few in London serious men: I mean serious even in fun: with a true purpose and character whatsoever it may be. London melts away all individuality into a common lump of cleverness. I am amazed at the humour and worth and noble feeling in the country, however much railroads have mixed us up with metropolitan civilization. I can still find the heart of England beating healthily down here, though no one will believe it.

You know my way of life so well that I need not describe it to you, as it has undergone no change since I saw you. I read of mornings; the same old books over and over again, having no command of new ones: walk with my great black dog of an afternoon, and at evening sit with open windows, up to which China roses climb, with my pipe, while the blackbirds and thrushes begin to rustle bedwards in the garden, and the nightingale to have the neighbourhood to herself. We have had such a spring (bating the last ten days) as would have satisfied even you with warmth. And such verdure! white clouds moving over the new fledged tops of oak trees, and acres of grass striving with buttercups. How old to tell of, how new to see! I believe that Leslie's Life of Constable (a very charming book) has given me a fresh love of Spring. Constable loved it above all seasons: he hated Autumn. When Sir G. Beaumont who was of the old classical taste asked him if he did not find it difficult to place his brown tree in his pictures, 'Not at all,' said C., 'I never put one in at all.' And when Sir George was crying up the tone of the old masters' landscapes, and quoting an old violin as the proper tone of colour for a picture, Constable got up, took an old Cremona, and laid it down on the sunshiny grass. You would like the book. In defiance of all this, I have hung my room with pictures, like very old fiddles indeed: but I agree with Sir George and Constable both. I like pictures that are not like nature. I can have nature better than any picture by looking out of my window. Yet I respect the man who tries to paint up to the freshness of earth and sky. Constable did not wholly achieve what he tried at: and perhaps the old masters chose a soberer scale of things as more within the compass of lead paint. To paint dew with lead!

I also plunge away at my old Handel of nights, and delight in the Allegro and Penseroso, full of pomp and fancy. What a pity Handel could not have written music to some great Masque, such as Ben Jonson or Milton would have written, if they had known of such a musician to write for.

To S. Laurence.

May, 1844.

DEAR LAURENCE,

I hope your business is settled by this time. I have seen praise of your picture in the Athenaeum, which quoted also the Chronicle's good opinion. I am very glad of all this and I hope you will now set to work, and paint away with ease and confidence, forgetting that there is such a hue as bottle-green {166} in the universe (it was tastefully omitted from the rainbow, you see); and, in spite of what Moore says, paint English people in English atmospheres. Your Coningham was rather orange, wasn't he? But he was very good, I thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever.

My Venetian pictures look very grand on my walls, which previously had been papered with a still green (not bottled) on purpose to receive them. On my table is a long necked bottle with three flowers just now in it . . . a tuft of rhododendron, a tuft of scarlet geranium, and a tuft of white gilli-flower. Do you see these in your mind's eye? I wish you could come down here and refresh your sodden eyes with pure daylight, budding oak trees, and all the changes of sky and cloud. To live to make sonnets about these things, and doat upon them, is worse Cockneyism than rejoicing in the sound of Bow Bells for ever so long: but here one has them whether one will or no: and they are better than Lady Morgan and —- at a rout in Harley Street. Maclise is a handsome and fine fellow, I think: and Landseer is very good natured. I long for my old Alfred portrait here sometimes: but you had better keep it for the present. W. Browne and Spedding are with me, good representatives one of the Vita Contemplativa, the other of the Vita Attiva. Spedding, if you tell him this, will not allow that he has not the elements of Action in him: nor has he not: nor has not the other those of contemplation: but each inclines a different way notwithstanding. I wish you and Spedding could come down here: though there is little to see, and to eat. When you write you must put Woodbridge after Boulge. This letter of yours went to Bury St. Edmunds, for want of that. I hear Alfred Tennyson is in very good looks: mind and paint him quickly when he comes to town; looking full at you.

To Bernard Barton.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE. [1844.]

DEAR BARTON,

I got here but yesterday, from Bedford, where I left W. Browne in train to be married to a rich woman. When I heard that they could not have less than five hundred a year, I gave up all further interest in the matter: for I could not wish a reasonable couple more. W. B. may be spoilt if he grows rich: that is the only thing could spoil him. This time ten years I first went to ride and fish with him about the river Ouse—he was then 18—quick to love and quick to fight—full of confidence, generosity, and the glorious spirit of Youth. . . . I shall go to Church and hope he mayn't be defiled with the filthy pitch. Oh! if we could be brought to open our eyes. I repent in ashes for reviling the Daddy who wrote that Sonnet against damned Riches.

I heard a man preach at Bedford in a way that shook my soul. He described the crucifixion in a way that put the scene before his people—no fine words, and metaphors: but first one nail struck into one hand, and then into another, and one through both feet—the cross lifted up with God in man's image distended upon it. And the sneers of the priests below—'Look at that fellow there—look at him—he talked of saving others, etc.' And then the sun veiled his face in Blood, etc. I certainly have heard oratory now—of the Lord Chatham kind, only Matthews has more faith in Christ than Pitt in his majority. I was almost as much taken aback as the poor folks all about me who sobbed: and I hate this beastly London more and more. It stinks all through of churchyards and fish shops. As to pictures—well, never mind them. Farewell!

In the chapel opposite this house preaches Robert Montgomery!

19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE. [13 June 1844.]

Oh, Barton man! but I am grilled here. Oh for to sit upon the banks of the dear old Deben, with the worthy collier sloop going forth into the wide world as the sun sinks! I went all over Westminster Abbey yesterday with a party of country folks, to see the tombs. I did this to vindicate my way of life. Then we had a smoke with Carlyle and he very gloomy about the look of affairs, as usual. I am as tired this morning as if I'd walked fifty miles. Morton, fresh from Italy, agrees that London is not fit to live in. I can't write, nor can you read perhaps. So farewell. Early next week (unless I go round by Bedford) I expect to see good Woodbridge.

To S. Laurence.

BOULGE, July 4/44.

DEAR LAURENCE,

I have but lately returned from Holbrook, where I saw your last portrait of Wilkinson. It is very capital, and gives my sister and all her neighbours great satisfaction. Jane indeed can talk of nothing else. I will say this however, with my usual ignorance and presumption, that I think the last day's sitting made it a little heavier than when I left it unfinished. Was it that the final glazing was somewhat too thick? I only mention this as a very slight defect, which I should not have observed had I not seen its penultimate state, and were I not a crotchetty stickler for lightness and ease. But I hope and trust you will now do all your future sketches in oil in the same way in which this is done: the long brush, the wholesome distance between canvas, painter, and sitter, and the few sittings. For myself, I have always been sure of this: but I can assert it to you with more confidence now, seeing that every one else seems to agree with me, if I may judge by the general approval of this specimen of the long brush. Besides, such a method must shorten your labour, preserve the freshness of your eye and spirit, and also ensure the similitude of the sitter to himself by the very speediness of the operation.

Mills was very much delighted at W.'s portrait. What will you say of me when I tell you that I did not encourage him to have his wife painted by you, as he seemed to purpose! You will pray heaven to deliver you from your friends. But notwithstanding this, I am sure this last portrait will bring you sitters from this part of the country. Perhaps you will not find it easy to forgive me this. I must tell you that Mrs. Mills, who sets up to be no judge of pictures, but who never is wrong about anything, instantly pitched on your portrait of Coningham as the best in the Exhibition, without seeing who it was by: and when she referred to the Catalogue, called out to her husband 'Why this is by E. F. G.'s friend Mr. Laurence.'

July 18. You see that all up to this was written a fortnight ago. I did not finish, for I did not know where to direct. And now I shall finish this portrait of my mind, you see, in a different aspect perhaps to that with which I set out. On looking over what I wrote however, I stick to all I said about the painting: as to Mrs. Mills, whose case seems to require some extenuation on my part, I fancied she was one of those persons' faces you would not take to: and so not succeed in. It is rather a pretty face, without meaning, it seems to me: and yet she has meaning in her. Mills has already had one portrait of her, which discontents all, and therefore it was I would not advise any painter who did not understand the art of Millinery well: for if the face does not wholly content, there is the dress to fall back on. I fancy Chalon would do the business.

I hear you have been doing some brother or brother in law of Mrs. Lumsden. Mind what I have told you. I may not be a good judge of painting, but I can judge of what people in general like. . . .

To John Allen.

(About July 16, 1844 J. A.)

MY DEAR GOOD ALLEN,

Let me hear from you, if even but a line, before you leave London on your summer excursion, whithersoever that is to be. I conclude you go somewhere; to Hampshire, or to Tenby. . . .

I have nothing to tell you of myself. Here I exist, and read scraps of books, garden a little, and am on good terms with my neighbours. The Times paper is stirring up our farming society to the root, and some good will come of it, I dare say, and some ill. Do you know of any good books on Education? not for the poor or Charity schools, but on modern Gentlemen's grammar schools, etc. Did not Combe write a book? But he is the driest Scotch Snuff. I beg leave to say that this letter is written with a pen of my own making: the first I have made these twenty years. I doubt after all it is no proof of a very intelligent pen-Creator, but only of a lucky slit. The next effort shall decide. Farewell, my dear Fellow. Don't forget unworthy me. We shall soon have known each other twenty years, and soon thirty, and forty, if we live a little while.

To Bernard Barton.

GELDESTONE, 22 August 1844.

MY DEAR BARTON,

You will think I have forgot you. I spent four pleasant days with Donne: who looks pale and thin, and in whose face the grey is creeping up from those once flourishing whiskers to the skull. It is doing so with me. We are neither of us in what may be called the first dawn of boyhood. Donne maintains his shape better than I do, but sorrow I doubt has done that: and so we see why the house of mourning is better than the stalled ox. For it is a grievous thing to grow poddy: the age of Chivalry is gone then. An old proverb says that 'a full belly neither fights nor flies well.'

I also saw Geldart at Norwich. He paints, and is deep in religious thoughts also: he has besides the finest English good sense about him: and altogether he is a man one goes to that one may learn from him. I walked much about Norwich and was pleased with the old place.

Here I see my old friend Mrs. Schutz, and play with the children. Having shown the little girl the prints of Boz's Curiosity Shop, I have made a short abstract of Little Nelly's wanderings which interests her much, leaving out the Swivellers, etc. For children do not understand how merriment should intrude in a serious matter. This might make a nice child's book, cutting out Boz's sham pathos, as well as the real fun; and it forms a kind of Nelly-ad, {174a} or Homeric narration of the child's wandering fortunes till she reaches at last a haven more desirable than any in stony Ithaca.

Lusia is to be married {174b} on the 2nd, I hear; and I shall set out for Leamington where the event takes place in the middle of next week. Whether I shall touch in my flight at Boulge is yet uncertain: so don't order any fireworks just at present. I hear from Mr. Crabbe he is delighted with D'Israeli's Coningsby, which I advised him to read. Have you read it? The children still wonder what Miss Charlesworth meant when she said that she didn't mean what she said. I tell them it is a new way of thinking of young England. I have exercised the children's minds greatly on the doctrine of Puseyitical reticence (that is not the word) but I find that children, who are great in the kingdom of Heaven, are all for blurting out what they mean. Farewell for the present. Ever yours, E. F. G.

If war breaks out with France, I will take up arms as a volunteer under Major Pytches. Pytches and Westminster Abbey!

LEAMINGTON, Sept. 28/44.

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . I expect to be here about a week, and I mean to give a day to looking over the field of Edgehill, on the top of which, I have ascertained, there is a very delightful pot-house, commanding a very extensive view. Don't you wish to sit at ease in such a high tower, with a pint of porter at your side, and to see beneath you the ground that was galloped over by Rupert and Cromwell two hundred years ago, in one of the richest districts of England, and on one of the finest days in October, for such my day is to be?

In the meanwhile I cast regretful glances of memory back to my garden at Boulge, which I want to see dug up and replanted. I have bought anemone roots which in the Spring shall blow Tyrian dyes, and Irises of a newer and more brilliant prism than Noah saw in the clouds. I have bought a picture of my poor quarrelsome friend Moore, just to help him; for I don't know what to do with his picture.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Oct. 10/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

You will think I have wholly cut you. But I wrote half a letter to you three months ago; and mislaid it; spent some time in looking for it, always hoping; and then some more time despairing; and we all know how time goes when [we] have got a thing to do which we are rather lazy about doing. As for instance, getting up in a morning. Not that writing a letter to you is so bad as getting up; but it is not easy for mortal man who has heard, seen, done, and thought, nothing since he last wrote, to fill one of these big foreign sheets full as a foreign letter ought to be. I am now returned to my dull home here after my usual pottering about in the midland counties of England. A little Bedfordshire—a little Northamptonshire—a little more folding of the hands—the same faces—the same fields—the same thoughts occurring at the same turns of road—this is all I have to tell of; nothing at all added—but the summer gone. My garden is covered with yellow and brown leaves; and a man is digging up the garden beds before my window, and will plant some roots and bulbs for next year. My parsons come and smoke with me, etc. 'The round of life from hour to hour'—alluding doubtless to a mill-horse. Alfred is reported to be still at Park House, where he has been sojourning for two months, I think; but he never writes me a word. Hydropathy has done its worst; he writes the names of his friends in water. . . . I spent two days in London with old Morton about five weeks ago; and pleasant days they were. The rogue bewitches me with his wit and honest speech. He also staid some while at Park House, while Alfred was there, and managed of course to frighten the party occasionally with some of his sallies. He often writes to me; and very good his letters are all of them.

When do you mean to write me another? Morton told me in his last that he had heard from Brotherton you were gone, or going, to Naples. I dare say this sheet of mine will never get to your hands. But if it does, let me hear from you. Is Italy becoming stale to you? Are you going to Cairo for fresh sensations? Thackeray went off in a steamboat about the time the French were before Mogadore; he was to see those coasts and to visit Jerusalem! Titmarsh at Jerusalem will certainly be an era in Christianity. But I suppose he will soon be back now. Spedding is yet in his highlands, I believe, considering Grouse and Bacon.

I expect to run up to London some time during the winter just to tell over old friends' faces and get a sup of music and painting. I have bought very few more pictures lately; and [heard] no music but Mendelssohn's M. Night's Dream. The overture, which was published long ago, is the best part; but there is a very noble triumphal march also.

Now I feel just in the same fix as I did in that sheet of paper whose fate is uncertain. But if I don't put in a word more, yet this shall go, I am determined. Only consider how it is a matter of necessity that I should have nothing to say. If you could see this place of Boulge! You who sit and survey marble palaces rising out of cypress and olive. There is a dreadful vulgar ballad, composed by Mr. Balfe, and sung with the most unbounded applause by Miss Rainforth,

'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble Halls,'

which is sung and organed at every corner in London. I think you may imagine what kind of flowing 6/8 time of the last degree of imbecility it is. The words are written by Mr. Bunn! Arcades ambo.

I say we shall see you over in England before long: for I rather think you want an Englishman to quarrel with sometimes. I mean quarrel in the sense of a good strenuous difference of opinion, supported on either side by occasional outbursts of spleen. Come and let us try. You used to irritate my vegetable blood sometimes.

To Bernard Barton.

[GELDESTONE, Nov. 27, 1844]

DEAR BARTON,

My return to Boulge is delayed for another week, because we expect my Father here just now. But for this, I should have been on the Union Coach this day. The children here are most delightful; the best company in all the world, to my mind. If you could see the little girl dance the Polka with her sisters! Not set up like an Infant Terpsichore, but seriously inclined, with perfect steps in perfect time.

We see a fine white frost over the grass this morning; and I suppose you have rubbed your hands and cried 'Oh Lauk, how cold it is!' twenty times before I write this. Now one's pictures become doubly delightful to one. I certainly love winter better than summer. Could one but know, as one sits within the tropic latitude of one's fireside, that there was not increased want, cold, and misery, beyond it!

My Spectator tells me that Leigh Hunt has published a good volume of Poem- selections; not his own poems, but of others. And Miss Martineau has been cured of an illness of five years standing by Mesmerism! By the help of a few passes of the hand following an earnest Will, she, who had not set foot out of her room, for the chief part of those five years, now can tread the grass again, and walk five miles! Her account of the business in the Athenaeum is extremely interesting. She is the only one I have read of who describes the sensations of the trance, which, seeming a painful one to the wide-awake looker on, is in fact a state of tranquil glorification to the patient. It cheers but not inebriates! She felt her disease oozing away out at her feet, and as it were streams of warm fresh vitality coming in its place. And when she woke, lo, this was no dream!

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Decr. 8/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

What is a poor devil to do? You tell me quite truly that my letters have not two ideas in them, and yet you tell me to write my two ideas as soon as I can. So indeed it is so far easy to write down one's two ideas, if they are not very abstruse ones; but then what the devil encouragement is it to a poor fellow to expose his nakedness so? All I can say is, to say again that if you lived in this place, you would not write so long a letter as you have done, full of capital description and all good things; though without any compliment I am sure you would write a better than I shall. But you see the original fault in me is that I choose to be in such a place as this at all; that argues certainly a talent for dullness which no situation nor intercourse of men could much improve. It is true; I really do like to sit in this doleful place with a good fire, a cat and dog on the rug, and an old woman in the kitchen. This is all my live stock. The house is yet damp as last year; and the great event of this winter is my putting up a trough round the eaves to carry off the wet. There was discussion whether the trough should be of iron or of zinc: iron dear and lasting; zinc the reverse. It was decided for iron; and accordingly iron is put up.

Why should I not live in London and see the world? you say. Why then I say as before, I don't like it. I think the dullness of country people is better than the impudence of Londoners; and the fresh cold and wet of our clay fields better than a fog that stinks per se; and this room of mine, clean at all events, better than a dirty room in Charlotte St. If you, Morton, and Alfred, were more in London, I should be there more; but now there is but Spedding and Allen whom I care a straw about. I have written two notes to Alfred to ask him just to notify his existence to me; but you know he is obstinate on that point. I heard from Carlyle that he (Alfred) had passed an evening at Chelsea much to C.'s delight; who has opened the gates of his Valhalla to let Alfred in. {181} Thackeray is at Malta, where I am told he means to winter. . . .

As I have no people to tell you of, so have I very few books, and know nothing of what is stirring in the literary world. I have read the Life of Arnold of Rugby, who was a noble fellow; and the letters of Burke, which do not add to, or detract from, what I knew and liked in him before. I am meditating to begin Thucydides one day; perhaps this winter. . . . Old Seneca, I have no doubt, was a great humbug in deed, and his books have plenty of it in word; but he had got together a vast deal of what was not humbug from others; and, as far as I see, the old philosophers are available now as much as two thousand years back. Perhaps you will think that is not saying much. Don't suppose I think it good philosophy in myself to keep here out of the world, and sport a gentle Epicurism; I do not; I only follow something of a natural inclination, and know not if I could do better under a more complex system. It is very smooth sailing hitherto down here. No velvet waistcoat and ever-lustrous pumps to be considered; no bon mots got up; no information necessary. There is a pipe for the parsons to smoke, and quite as much bon mots, literature, and philosophy as they care for without any trouble at all. If we could but feed our poor! It is now the 8th of December; it has blown a most desperate East wind, all razors; a wind like one of those knives one sees at shops in London, with 365 blades all drawn and pointed; the wheat is all sown; the fallows cannot be ploughed. What are all the poor folks to do during the winter? And they persist in having the same enormous families they used to do; a woman came to me two days ago who had seventeen children! What farmers are to employ all these? What Landlord can find room for them? The law of Generation must be repealed. The London press does nothing but rail at us poor country folks for our cruelty. I am glad they do so; for there is much to be set right. But I want to know if the Editor of the Times is more attentive to his devils, their wives and families, than our squires and squiresses and parsons are to their fellow parishioners. Punch also assumes a tone of virtuous satire, from the mouth of Mr. Douglas Jerrold! It is easy to sit in arm chairs at a club in Pall Mall and rail on the stupidity and brutality of those in High Suffolk.

Come, I have got more than two ideas into this sheet; but I don't know if you won't dislike them worse than mere nothing. But I was determined to fill my letter. Yes, you are to know that I slept at Woodbridge last night, went to church there this morning, where every one sat with a purple nose, and heard a dismal well-meant sermon; and the organ blew us out with one grand idea at all events, one of old Handel's Coronation Anthems; that I dined early, also in Woodbridge; and walked up here with a tremendous East wind blowing sleet in my face from over the German Sea, that I found your letter when I entered my room; and reading it through, determined to spin you off a sheet incontinently, and lo! here it is! Now or never! I shall now have my tea in, and read over your letter again while at it. You are quite right in saying that Gravesend excursions with you do me good. When did I doubt it? I remember them with great pleasure; few of my travels so much so. I like a short journey in good company; and I like you all the better for your Englishman's humours. One doesn't find such things in London; something more like it here in the country, where every one, with whatever natural stock of intellect endowed, at least grows up his own way, and flings his branches about him, not stretched on the espalier of London dinner-table company.

P.S. Next morning. Snow over the ground. We have our wonders of inundation in Suffolk also, I can tell you. For three weeks ago such floods came, that an old woman was carried off as she was retiring from a beer house about 9 p.m., and drowned. She was probably half seas over before she left the beer house.

And three nights ago I looked out at about ten o'clock at night, before going to bed. It seemed perfectly still; frosty, and the stars shining bright. I heard a continuous moaning sound, which I knew to be, not that of an infant exposed, or female ravished, but of the sea, more than ten miles off! What little wind there was carried to us the murmurs of the waves circulating round these coasts so far over a flat country. But people here think that this sound so heard is not from the waves that break, but a kind of prophetic voice from the body of the sea itself announcing great gales. Sure enough we have got them, however heralded. Now I say that all this shows that we in this Suffolk are not so completely given over to prose and turnips as some would have us. I always said that being near the sea, and being able to catch a glimpse of it from the tops of hills, and of houses, redeemed Suffolk from dullness; and at all events that our turnip fields, dull in themselves, were at least set all round with an undeniably poetic element. And so I see Arnold says; he enumerates five inland counties as the only parts of England for which nothing could be said in praise. Not that I agree with him there neither; I cannot allow the valley of the Ouse about which some of my pleasantest recollections hang to be without its great charm. W. Browne, whom you despised, is married, and I shall see but little of him for the future. I have laid by my rod and line by the willows of the Ouse for ever. 'He is married and cannot come.' This change is the true meaning of those verses, {185}

Friend after friend departs; Who has not lost a friend?

and so on. If I were conscious of being stedfast and good humoured enough, I would marry to-morrow. But a humourist is best by himself.

To Bernard Barton.

19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE, Jany. 4/45.

DEAR BARTON,

Clawed hold of by a bad cold am I—a London cold—where the atmosphere clings to you, like a wet blanket. You have often received a letter from me on a Sunday, haven't you? I think I used to write you an account of the picture purchases of the week, that you might have something to reflect upon in your silent meeting. (N.B. This is very wrong, and I don't mean it.) Well, now I have bought no pictures, and sha'n't; but one I had bought is sent to be lined. A Bassano of course; which nobody will like but myself. It is a grave picture; an Italian Lord dictating to a Secretary with upturned face. Good company, I think.

You did not tell me how you and Miss Barton got on with the Vestiges. I found people talking about it here; and one laudatory critique in the Examiner sold an edition in a few days. I long to finish it. I am going in state to the London Library—my Library—to review the store of books it contains, and carry down a box full for winter consumption. Do you want anything? eh, Mr. Barton?

I went to see Sophocles' tragedy of Antigone done into English two nights ago. And yesterday I dined with my dear old John Allen who remains whole and intact of the world in the heart of London. He dined some while ago at Lambeth, and the Lady next him asked the Archbishop if he read Punch. Allen thought this was a misplaced question: but I think the Archbishop ought to see Punch: though not to read it regularly perhaps. I then asked Allen about the Vestiges—he had heard of it—laughed at the idea of its being atheistical. 'No enquiry,' said he, 'can be atheistical.' I doubt if the Archbishop of Canterbury could say that. What do you think of Exeter? Isn't he a pretty lad?

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE, Jan. 29/45.

MY DEAR DONNE,

. . . A. T. has near a volume of poems—elegiac—in memory of Arthur Hallam. Don't you think the world wants other notes than elegiac now? Lycidas is the utmost length an elegiac should reach. But Spedding praises: and I suppose the elegiacs will see daylight, public daylight, one day. Carlyle goes on growling with his Cromwell: whom he finds more and more faultless every day. So that his paragon also will one day see the light also, an elegiac of a different kind from Tennyson's; as far apart indeed as Cromwell and Hallam.

Barton comes and sups with me to-morrow, and George Crabbe, son of the poet, a capital fellow.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Feby. 6, 1845.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

. . . You like to hear of men and manners. Have I not been to London for a whole fortnight, seen Alfred, Spedding, all the lawyers and all the painters, gone to Panoramas of Naples by Volcano-light (Vesuvius in a blaze illuminating the whole bay, which Morton says is not a bit better than Plymouth Sound, if you could put a furnace in the belly of Mount Edgecumbe)—gone to see the Antigone of Messrs. Sophocles and Mendelssohn at Covent Garden—gone to see the Infant Thalia—now as little of an Infant as a Thalia—at the Adelaide Gallery. So! you see things go on as when you were with us. Only the Thalia has waxed in stature: and perhaps in wisdom also: but that is not in her favour. The Antigone is, as you are aware, a neatly constructed drama, on the French model; the music very fine, I thought—but you would turn up your nose at it, I dare say. It was horribly ill sung, by a chorus in shabby togas, who looked much more like dirty bakers than Theban (were they?) respectable old gentlemen. Mr. Vandenhoff sat on a marble camp-stool in the middle, and looked like one of Flaxman's Homeric Kings—very well. And Miss Vandenhoff did Antigone. I forget the name of the lady who did Ismene; {189} perhaps you would have thought her very handsome: but I did not, nor was she considered at all remarkable, as far as I could make out. I saw no pantomimes: and all the other theatres were filled with Balfe, whom perhaps you admire very much. So I won't say anything about him till you have told me what you think on his score. . . .

Well and have you read 'Eothen' which all the world talks of? And do you know who it is written by? . . . Then Eliot Warburton has written an Oriental Book! Ye Gods! In Shakespeare's day the nuisance was the Monsieur Travellers who had 'swum in a gundello'; but now the bores are those who have smoked tschibouques with a Peshaw! Deuce take it: I say 'tis better to stick to muddy Suffolk.

To Bernard Barton.

GELDESTONE, April 3/45.

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . I have been loitering out in the garden here this golden day of Spring. The woodpigeons coo in the covert; the frogs croak in the pond; the bees hum about some thyme, and some of my smaller nieces have been busy gathering primroses, 'all to make posies suitable to this present month.' I cannot but think with a sort of horror of being in London now: but I doubt I must be ere long. . . . I have abjured all Authorship, contented at present with the divine Poem which Great Nature is now composing about us. These primroses seem more wonderful and delicious Annuals than Ackerman ever put forth. I suppose no man ever grew so old as not to feel younger in Spring. Yet, poor old Mrs. Bodham {190} lifted up her eyes to the windows, and asked if it were a clear or a dull day!

39 NORTON ST., FITZROY SQR. [? May 1845.]

DEAR BARTON,

You see my address. I only got into it yesterday, though I reached London on Friday, and hung loose upon it for all that interval. I spent four days at Cambridge pleasantly enough; and one at Bedford where I heard my friend Matthews preach.

Last night I appeared at the Opera, and shall do so twice a week till further notice. Friends I have seen but few; for I have not yet found time to do anything. Alfred Tennyson was here; but went off yesterday to consider the sea from the top of Beachy Head. Carlyle gets on with his book which will be in two big volumes. He has entirely misstated all about Naseby, after all my trouble. . . .

Did Churchyard see in London a picture at the address I enclose? The man's card, you see, proclaims 'Silversmith,' but he is 'Pawnbroker.' A picture hangs up at the door which he calls by 'Williams,' but I think is a rather inferior Crome; though the figure in it is not like Crome's figures. The picture is about three feet high by two broad; good in the distance; very natural in the branching of the trees; heavy in the foliage; all common to Crome. And it seems painted in that fat substance he painted in. If C. come to London let him look at this picture, as well as come and see me.

I have cold, head-ache, and London disgust. Oh that I could look on my Anemones! and hear the sighing of my Scotch firs. The Exhibition is full of bad things: there is a grand Turner, however; quite unlike anything that was ever seen in Heaven above, or in Earth beneath, or in the waters under the Earth.

The reign of primroses and cowslips is over, and the oak now begins to take up the empire of the year and wear a budding garland about his brows. Over all this settles down the white cloud in the West, and the Morning and Evening draw toward Summer.

[? May 1845.]

MY DEAR BARTON,

Had not your second note arrived this morning, I should surely have written to you; that you might have a little letter for your Sunday's breakfast. Do not accuse me of growing enamoured of London; I would have been in the country long ago if I could. . . . Nor do I think I shall get away till the end of this month; and then I will go. I am not so bad as Tennyson, who has been for six weeks intending to start every day for Switzerland or Cornwall, he doesn't quite know which. However, his stay has been so much gain to me; for he and John Allen are the two men that give me pleasure here.

Tell Churchyard he must come up once again. . . . I saw a most lovely Sir Joshua at Christie's a week ago; it went far far above my means. There is an old hunting picture in Regent St. which I want him to look at. I think it is Morland; whom I don't care twopence for; the horses ill drawn; some good colour: the people English; good old England! I was at a party of modern wits last night that made me creep into myself, and wish myself away talking to any Suffolk old woman in her cottage, while the trees murmured without. The wickedness of London appals me; and yet I am no paragon.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE. June, 12/45.

DEAR FREDERIC,

Though I write from Boulge you are not to suppose I have been here ever since I last wrote to you. On the contrary, I am but just returned from London, where I spent a month, and saw all the sights and all the people I cared to see. But what am I to tell you of them? Spedding, you know, does not change: he is now the same that he was fourteen years old when I first knew him at school more than twenty years ago; wise, calm, bald, combining the best qualities of Youth and Age. And then as to things seen; you know that one Exhibition tells another, and one Panorama certifieth another, etc. If you want to know something of the Exhibition however, read Fraser's Magazine for this month; there Thackeray has a paper on the matter, full of fun. I met Stone in the street the other day; he took me by the button, and told me in perfect sincerity, and with increasing warmth, how, though he loved old Thackeray, yet these yearly out-speakings of his sorely tried him; not on account of himself (Stone), but on account of some of his friends, Charles Landseer, Maclise, etc. Stone worked himself up to such a pitch under the pressure of forced calmess that he at last said Thackeray would get himself horse-whipped one day by one of these infuriated Apelleses. At this I, who had partly agreed with Stone that ridicule, though true, needs not always to be spoken, began to laugh: and told him two could play at that game. These painters cling together, and bolster each other up, to such a degree, that they really have persuaded themselves that any one who ventures to laugh at one of their drawings, exhibited publickly for the express purpose of criticism, insults the whole corps. In the mean while old Thackeray laughs at all this; and goes on in his own way; writing hard for half a dozen Reviews and Newspapers all the morning; dining, drinking, and talking of a night; managing to preserve a fresh colour and perpetual flow of spirits under a wear-and-tear of thinking and feeding that would have knocked up any other man I know two years ago, at least. . . .

Alfred was in London the first week of my stay there. He was looking well, and in good spirits; and had got two hundred lines of a new poem in a butcher's book. He went down to Eastbourne in Sussex; where I believe he now is. He and I made a plan to go to the coast of Cornwall or Wales this summer; but I suppose we shall manage never to do it. I find I must go to Ireland; which I had not intended to do this year.

I have nothing new to tell you of Music. The Operas were the same old affair; Linda di Chamouni, the Pirata, etc. Grisi coarse, . . . only Lablache great. There is one singer also, Brambelli, who, with a few husky notes, carries one back to the days of Pasta. I did not hear 'Le Desert'; but I fancy the English came to a fair judgment about it. That is, they did not want to hear it more than once. It was played many times, for new batches of people; but I doubt if any one went twice. So it is with nearly all French things; there is a clever showy surface; but no Holy of Holies far withdrawn; conceived in the depth of a mind, and only to be received into the depth of ours after much attention. Poussin must spend his life in Italy before he could paint as he did; and what other Great Man, out of the exact Sciences, have they to show? This you will call impudence. Now Beethoven, you see by your own experience, has a depth not to be reached all at once. I admit with you that he is too bizarre, and, I think, morbid; but he is original, majestic, and profound. Such music thinks; so it is with Gluck; and with Mendelssohn. As to Mozart, he was, as a musical Genius, more wonderful than all. I was astonished at the Don Giovanni lately. It is certainly the Greatest Opera in the world. I went to no concert, and am now sorry I did not.

Now I have told you all my London news. You will not hear of my Cottage and Garden; so now I will shut up shop and have done. We have had a dismal wet May; but now June is recompensing us for all, and Dr. Blow may be said to be leading the great Garden Band in full chorus. This is a pun, which, profound in itself, you must not expect to enjoy at first reading. I am not sure that I am myself conscious of the full meaning of it. I know it is very hot weather; the distant woods steaming blue under the noonday sun. I suppose you are living without clothes in wells, where you are. Remember me to your brothers; write soon; and believe me ever yours,

E. FITZGERALD.

As to going to Italy, alas! I have less call to do that than ever: I never shall go. You must come over here about your Railroad land.

To John Allen.

BEDFORD, August 27/45.

DEAR GOOD ALLEN,

. . . I came here a week ago, and am paying my usual visits at the Brownes' and at Airy's. {196} I also purpose going to Naseby for two days very soon; and after that I shall retire slowly homeward; not to move, I suppose (except it be for some days to London) till next summer comes again!

I am just now staying with W. B. and his wife. . . . The Father and Mother of Mrs. W. Browne bought old Mrs. Piozzi's house at Streatham thirty-five years ago; all the Sir Joshua portraits therein, which they sold directly afterward for a song; and all the furniture, of which some yet helps to fill the house I now stay in. In the bedroom I write in is Dr. Johnson's own bookcase and secretaire; with looking glass in the panels which often reflected his uncouth shape. His own bed is also in the house; but I do not sleep in it.

I am reading Selwyn's Correspondence, a remarkable book, as all such records of the mind of a whole generation must be. Carlyle writes me word his Cromwell papers will be out in October; and that then we are all to be convinced that Richard had no hump to his back. I am strong in favour of the hump; I do not think the common sense of two centuries is apt to be deceived in such a matter.

Now if your time is not wholly filled up, pray do give me one line to say you have not wholly given me up as a turncoat. I would rather have sat with you on the cliffs of St. David's than done anything I have done for the last six months. Believe that, please. And now good bye, my dear fellow. The harvest promises very well here about; but I expect to find less prosperity at Naseby.