also in face
and dress. Have you read The Collegians? {90a}

I have now begun to sketch heads on the blotting paper on which my paper
rests--a sure sign, as Miss Edgeworth tells me, that I have said quite
enough. She is right. Good-bye. In so far as this country is Ireland I
am glad to be here: but inasmuch as it is not England I wish I were
there.

_To S. Laurence_.

NASEBY, _Septr_. 28/41.

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

. . . Do you know that I wanted you to come down by the railroad and see
me here: where there is nothing else to be seen but myself: which would
have been a comfort to you. I have been staying here three weeks alone,
smoking with farmers, looking at their lands, and taking long walks
alone: during which (as well as when I was in Ireland) I made such
sketches as will make you throw down your brush in despair. I wish you
would ask at Molteno's or Colnaghi's for a new Lithographic print of a
head of Dante, after a fresco by Giotto, lately discovered in some chapel
{90b} at Florence. It is the most wonderful head that ever was
seen--Dante at about twenty-seven years old: rather younger. The
Edgeworths had a print in Ireland: got by great interest in Florence
before the legitimate publication: but they told me it was to be abroad
in September. If you can get me a copy, pray do.

_To F. Tennyson_.

Imo piano. No. o. Strada del Obelisco.
NASEBY. [_Oct_. 1841.]

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I am surprised you think my scanty letters are worth encouraging,
especially with such long and excellent answers as that I have just got
from you. It has found its way down here: and oddly enough does your
Italian scenery, painted, I believe, very faithfully upon my inner eye,
contrast with the British barrenness of the Field of Naseby. Yet here
was fought a battle of some interest to Englishmen: and I am persuading
farmers to weed well the corn that grows over those who died there. No,
no; in spite of your Vesuviuses and sunshine, I love my poor dear brave
barren ugly country. Talk of your Italians! why, they are extinguished
by the Austrians because they don't blaze enough of themselves to burn
the extinguisher. Only people who deserve despotism are forced to suffer
it. We have at last good weather: and the harvest is just drawing to a
close in this place. It is a bright brisk morning, and the loaded
waggons are rolling cheerfully past my window. But since I wrote what is
above a whole day has passed: I have e