been away, so that people
begin to fancy they understand what it means. I have been striving at
it, because it is a very _sine qua non_ condition in a book which I have
just been reading, Eastlake's translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours.
I recommend it to you, when you can get hold of it. Come back to England
quick and read my copy. Goethe is all in opposition to Newton: and
reduces the primitive colours to two. Whewell, I believe, does not
patronise it: but it is certainly very Baconically put together. While
you are wandering among ruins, waterfalls, and temples, and contemplating
them as you sit in your lodgings, I poke about with a book and a colour-
box by the side of the river Ouse--quiet scenery enough--and make
horrible sketches. The best thing to me in Italy would be that you are
there. But I hope you will soon come home and install yourself again in
Mornington Crescent. I have just come from Leamington: while there, I
met Alfred by chance: we made two or three pleasant excursions together:
to Stratford upon Avon and Kenilworth, etc. Don't these names sound very
thin amid your warm southern nomenclature? But I'll be bound you would
be pleased to exchange all your fine burnt up places for a look at a
Warwickshire pasture every now and then during these hot days. . . .

The sun shines very bright, and there is a kind of bustle in these clean
streets, because there is to be a grand True Blue dinner in the town
Hall. Not that I am going: in an hour or two I shall be out in the
fields rambling alone. I read Burnet's History--ex pede Herculem. Well,
say as you will, there is not, and never was, such a country as Old
England--never were there such a Gentry as the English. They will be the
distinguishing mark and glory of England in History, as the Arts were of
Greece, and War of Rome. I am sure no travel would carry me to any land
so beautiful, as the good sense, justice, and liberality of my good
countrymen make this. And I cling the closer to it, because I feel that
we are going down the hill, and shall perhaps live ourselves to talk of
all this independence as a thing that has been. To none of which you
assent perhaps. At all events, my paper is done, and it is time to have
done with this solemn letter. I can see you sitting at a window that
looks out on the bay of Naples, and Vesuvius with a faint smoke in the
distance: a half-naked man under you cutting up watermelons, etc. Haven't
I seen i