to enquire about him of
his Niece a month ago: he had been very poorly, she said, but was himself
again; only going in Carriage, not on foot, for his daily Exercise: wrapt
up in furry Dressing-gown, and wondering that any one else complained of
Cold. He kept on reading assiduously, sometimes till past midnight, in
spite of all endeavours to get him to bed. 'Qu'est ce que cela fait si
je m'amuse?' as old Voltaire said on like occasions.

I have got down the Doudan {234} you recommended me: but have not yet
begun with him. Pepys' Diary and Sir Walter, read to me for two hours of
a night, have made those two hours almost the best of the twenty-four for
all these winter months. That Eve of Preston Battle, with the old
Baron's Prayers to his Troop! He is tiresome afterwards, I know, with
his Bootjack. But Sir Walter for ever! What a fine Picture would that
make of Evan Dhu's entrance into Tully Veolan Breakfast Hall, with a
message from his Chief; he standing erect in his Tartan, while the Baron
keeps his State, and pretty Rose at the Table. There is a subject for
one of your Artists. Another very pretty one (I thought the other Day)
would be that of the child Keats keeping guard with a drawn sword at his
sick Mother's Chamber door. Millais might do it over here: but I don't
know him. . . .

I will send you Carlyle's Squire correspondence, which you will keep to
yourself and Lowell: you being Carlyle's personal friend as well as
myself. Not that there is anything that should not be further divulged:
but one must respect private Letters. Carlyle's proves a droll instance
of even so shrewd a man wholly mistaking a man's character from his
Letters: had now that Letter been two hundred years old! and no
intelligent Friend to set C. right by ocular Demonstration.

_To J. R. Lowell_.

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE.
_February_ 28/78.

MY DEAR SIR,

I ventured to send you Keats' Love Letters to Miss--_Brawne_! a name in
which there is much, as you say of his, and other names. . . . Well, I
thought you might--must--wish to see these Letters, and, may be, not get
them so readily in Spain. So I made bold. The Letters, I doubt not, are
genuine: whether rightly or wrongly published I can't say: only I, for
one, am glad of them. I had just been hammering out some Notes on
Catullus, by our Cambridge Munro, Editor of Lucretius, which you ought to
have; English Notes to both, and the Prose Version of Lucretius quite
read