n Giovanni lately. It is certainly
the Greatest Opera in the world. I went to no concert, and am now sorry
I did not.

Now I have told you all my London news. You will not hear of my Cottage
and Garden; so now I will shut up shop and have done. We have had a
dismal wet May; but now June is recompensing us for all, and Dr. Blow may
be said to be leading the great Garden Band in full chorus. This is a
pun, which, profound in itself, you must not expect to enjoy at first
reading. I am not sure that I am myself conscious of the full meaning of
it. I know it is very hot weather; the distant woods steaming blue under
the noonday sun. I suppose you are living without clothes in wells,
where you are. Remember me to your brothers; write soon; and believe me
ever yours,

E. FITZGERALD.

As to going to Italy, alas! I have less call to do that than ever: I
never shall go. You must come over here about your Railroad land.

_To John Allen_.

BEDFORD, _August_ 27/45.

DEAR GOOD ALLEN,

. . . I came here a week ago, and am paying my usual visits at the
Brownes' and at Airy's. {196} I also purpose going to Naseby for two
days very soon; and after that I shall retire slowly homeward; not to
move, I suppose (except it be for some days to London) till next summer
comes again!

I am just now staying with W. B. and his wife. . . . The Father and
Mother of Mrs. W. Browne bought old Mrs. Piozzi's house at Streatham
thirty-five years ago; all the Sir Joshua portraits therein, which they
sold directly afterward for a song; and all the furniture, of which some
yet helps to fill the house I now stay in. In the bedroom I write in is
Dr. Johnson's own bookcase and secretaire; with looking glass in the
panels which often reflected his uncouth shape. His own bed is also in
the house; but I do not sleep in it.

I am reading Selwyn's Correspondence, a remarkable book, as all such
records of the mind of a whole generation must be. Carlyle writes me
word his Cromwell papers will be out in October; and that then we are all
to be convinced that Richard had no hump to his back. I am strong in
favour of the hump; I do not think the common sense of two centuries is
apt to be deceived in such a matter.

Now if your time is not wholly filled up, pray do give me one line to say
you have not wholly given me up as a turncoat. I would rather have sat
with you on the cliffs of St. David's than done anything I have done for
the last six