,
E. F. G.

If war breaks out with France, I will take up arms as a volunteer under
Major Pytches. Pytches and Westminster Abbey!

LEAMINGTON, _Sept._ 28/44.

MY DEAR BARTON,

. . . I expect to be here about a week, and I mean to give a day to
looking over the field of Edgehill, on the top of which, I have
ascertained, there is a very delightful pot-house, commanding a very
extensive view. Don't you wish to sit at ease in such a high tower, with
a pint of porter at your side, and to see beneath you the ground that was
galloped over by Rupert and Cromwell two hundred years ago, in one of the
richest districts of England, and on one of the finest days in October,
for such my day is to be?

In the meanwhile I cast regretful glances of memory back to my garden at
Boulge, which I want to see dug up and replanted. I have bought anemone
roots which in the Spring shall blow Tyrian dyes, and Irises of a newer
and more brilliant prism than Noah saw in the clouds. I have bought a
picture of my poor quarrelsome friend Moore, just to help him; for I
don't know what to do with his picture.

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _Oct_. 10/44.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

You will think I have wholly cut you. But I wrote half a letter to you
three months ago; and mislaid it; spent some time in looking for it,
always hoping; and then some more time despairing; and we all know how
time goes when [we] have got a thing to do which we are rather lazy about
doing. As for instance, getting up in a morning. Not that writing a
letter to you is so bad as getting up; but it is not easy for mortal man
who has heard, seen, done, and thought, nothing since he last wrote, to
fill one of these big foreign sheets full as a foreign letter ought to
be. I am now returned to my dull home here after my usual pottering
about in the midland counties of England. A little Bedfordshire--a
little Northamptonshire--a little more folding of the hands--the same
faces--the same fields--the same thoughts occurring at the same turns of
road--this is all I have to tell of; nothing at all added--but the summer
gone. My garden is covered with yellow and brown leaves; and a man is
digging up the garden beds before my window, and will plant some roots
and bulbs for next year. My parsons come and smoke with me, etc. 'The
round of life from hour to hour'--alluding doubtless to a mill-horse.
Alfred is reported to be still at Park House, where he has been
sojou