letter to some one who had just gone away from his
house. I should not mind that, only you will persist in answering what
calls for no answer. But the enclosed came here To-day, and as I might
mislay it if I waited for my average time of writing to you, I enclose it
to you now. It shows, at any rate, that I do not neglect your Queries;
nor does he to whom I refer what I cannot answer myself. {174}

This Wright edits certain Shakespeare Plays for Macmillan: very well, I
fancy, so far as Notes go; simply explaining what needs explanation for
young Readers, and eschewing all _aesthetic_ (now, don't say you don't
know what 'aesthetic' means, etc.) aesthetic (detestable word)
observation. With this the Swinburnes, Furnivalls, Athenaeums, etc.,
find fault: and a pretty hand they make of it when they try that tack. It
is safest surely to give people all the _Data_ you can for forming a
Judgment, and then leave them to form it by themselves.

You see that I enclose you the fine lines {175} which I believe I
repeated to you, and which I wish you to paste on the last page of my
Crabbe, so as to be a pendant to Richard's last look at the Children and
their play. I know not how I came to leave it out when first printing:
for certainly the two passages had for many years run together in my
Memory.

Adieu, Madame: non pas pour toujours, j'espere; pas meme pour long temps.
Cependant, ne vous genez pas, je vous prie, en repondant a une lettre qui
ne vaut--qui ne reclame pas meme--aucune reponse: tandis que vous me
croyez votre tres devoue

EDOUARD DE PETITGRANGE.

LXXII.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 26, [1880.]

MY DEAR LADY:

The Moon has reminded me that it is a month since I last went up to
London. I said to the Cabman who took me to Queen Anne's, 'I think it
must be close on Full Moon,' and he said, 'I shouldn't wonder,' not
troubling himself to look back to the Abbey over which she was riding.
Well; I am sure I have little enough to tell you; but I shall be glad to
hear from you that you are well and comfortable, if nothing else. And
you see that I am putting my steel pen into its very best paces all for
you. By far the chief incident in my life for the last month has been
the reading of dear old Spedding's Paper on the Merchant of Venice: {176}
there, at any rate, is one Question settled, and in such a beautiful way
as only he commands. I could not help writing a few lines to tell him
what I thought; but even