rice's
Introductory Lecture I shall be very glad to have. I do not fancy I
should read his Kingdom of Christ, should I? You know.

I have had bad cold and cough which still hang about me: this damp
cottage is not good for a cure. . . . And now goodbye.

_To F. Tennyson_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
[? 1843.]

DEAR FREDERIC,

I am glad you are back, and perhaps sorry. But glad let it be, for I
shall be in London, as proposed, in another fortnight--more or less--and
shall pig there in a garret for two months. We will go to picture sales
and buy bad pictures: though I have scarce money left. But I am really
at last going to settle in some spooney quarters in the country, and
would fain carry down some better forms and colours to put about me. I
cannot get the second or third best: but I can get the imitations of the
best: and that is enough for me.

What is become of Alfred? He never writes--nor is heard of.

Your letter found me poring over Harrington's Oceana: a long-shelved
book--its doctrine of Government I am no judge of: but what English those
fellows wrote! I cannot read the modern mechanique after them. 'This
free-born Nation lives not upon the dole or Bounty of One Man, but
distributing her Annual Magistracies and Honours with her own hand is
herself King People.' Harrington must be a better writer than Milton.
One finds books of this kind in these country houses: and it is pleasant
to look them over at midnight in the kitchen, where I retire to smoke. .
. .

Farewell till I see you one of these days.

_To S. Laurence_.

DUBLIN, _July_ 11/43

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

We got here this morning; most of us sick, but not I: not evidently sick,
I mean. Here the sun shines, and people go about in their cars or stand
idle, just the same as ever. 'Repeal' is faintly chalked on a wall here
and there. I have been to see a desperate collection of pictures by the
Royal Academy: among them old unsaleables by Maclise and Uwins.

What I write for however is to say that the first volume of Titmarsh's
Ireland is at 39 Portland Place; and that I wish you would ask for it
there and get it. Keep the two volumes for a time. It is all true. I
ordered a bath here when I got in: the waiter said it was heated to 90
degrees, but it was scalding: he next locked me up in the room instead of
my locking him out.

Keep an eye on the little Titian, and I shall really make the venture of
borrowing 30 pounds to invest