een are very much pleased
with it, the Cowells at Oxford delighted. A Bookseller there sold all
his Copies the first day they came down: and even in Bath a Bookseller
(and not one of the Principal) told me a fortnight ago he had sold some
twenty copies. I have not been in Town since it came out: and have now
so little correspondence with literati I can't tell you about them.
There was a very unfair Review in the _Athenaeum_; which is the only
Literary Paper I see: but I am told there are laudatory ones in
_Examiner_ and _Spectator_.

I was five weeks at Oxford, visiting the Cowells in just the same way
that I am visiting my Sister here. I also liked Oxford greatly: but not
so well I think as Bath: which is so large and busy that one is drowned
in it as much as in London. There are often concerts, etc., for those
who like them; I only go to a shilling affair that comes off every
Saturday at what they call the Pump Room. On these occasions there is
sometimes some Good Music if not excellently played. Last Saturday I
heard a fine Trio of Beethoven. Mendelssohn's things are mostly tiresome
to me. I have brought my old Handel Book here and recreate myself now
and then with pounding one of the old Giant's Overtures on my sister's
Piano, as I used to do on that Spinnet at my Cottage. As to Operas, and
Exeter Halls, I have almost done with them: they give me no pleasure, I
scarce know why.

I suppose there is no chance of your being over in England this year,
and perhaps as little Chance of my being in Italy. All I can say is, the
latter is not impossible, which I suppose I may equally say of the
former. But pray write me. You can always direct to me at Donne's, 12,
St. James' Square, or at Rev. G. Crabbe's, Bredfield, Woodbridge. Either
way the letter will soon reach me. Write soon, Frederic, and let me hear
how you and yours are: and don't wait, as you usually do, for some
inundation of the Arno to set your pen agoing. Write ever so shortly and
whatever-about-ly. I have no news to tell you of Friends. I saw old
Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a Niece he
dearly loved and whose deathbed at Hastings he had just been waiting
upon. Harry Lushington wrote a martial Ode on seeing the Guards march
over Waterloo Bridge towards the East: I did not see it, but it was much
admired and handed about, I believe. And now my paper is out: and I am
going through the rain (it is said to rain very much here) to my
Siste