e between him and his adversaries; first,
because I have but little, if any, faculty of critical Analysis; and
secondly, because I am prejudiced with the notion that old Jem is
Shakespeare's Prophet, and must be right. But, whether right or wrong,
the way in which he conducts, and pleads, his Case is always Music to me.
So it was even with Bacon, with whom I could not be reconciled: I could
not like Dr. Fell: much more so with 'the Divine Williams,' who is a
Doctor that I do like.

It has turned so dark here in the last two days that I scarce see to
write at my desk by a window which has a hood over it, meant to
exclude--the Sun! I have increased my Family by two broods of Ducks, who
compete for the possession of a Pond about four feet in diameter: and but
an hour ago I saw my old Seneschal escorting home a stray lot of
Chickens. My two elder Nieces are with me at present, but I do not think
will be long here, if a Sister comes to them from Italy.

Pray let me hear how you are. I am pretty well myself:--though not quite
up to the mark of my dear Sevigne, who writes from her Rochers when close
on sixty--'Pour moi, je suis d'une si parfaite sante, que je ne comprends
point ce que Dieu veut faire de moi.' {190}

But yours always and a Day,
LITTLEGRANGE.

LXXVIII.

[WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 24, 1880.]

'Il sera le mois de Juillet tant qu'il plaira a Dieu' writes my friend
Sevigne--only a week more of it now, however. I should have written to
my friend Mrs. Kemble before this--in defiance of the Moon--had I not
been waiting for her Address from Mowbray Donne, to whom I wrote more
than a fortnight ago. I hope no ill-health in himself, or his Family,
keeps him from answering my Letter, if it ever reached him. But I will
wait no longer for his reply: for I want to know concerning you and your
health: and so I must trouble Coutts to fill up the Address which you
will not instruct me in.

Here (Woodbridge) have I been since last I wrote--some Irish Cousins
coming down as soon as English Nieces had left. Only that in the week's
interval I went to our neighbouring Aldeburgh on the Sea--where I first
saw, and felt, the Sea some sixty-five years ago; a dreary place enough
in spite of some Cockney improvements: my old Crabbe's Borough, as you
may remember. I think one goes back to the old haunts as one grows old:
as the Chancellor l'Hopital said when he returned to his native
Bourdeaux, I think: 'Me voici, Messieur