lad about Lucknow. I shall be glad to hear a word of yourself,
Calderon, and Don Quixote, the latter of whom [Greek text] from my
Bookshelf. Yes, yes, I am soon coming.

WOODBRIDGE. _June_ 13/79.

MY DEAR SIR,

I had just written a Letter to Tennyson, a thing I had not done these two
years, when one was brought to me with what I thought his Subscription,
which I have not seen for twice two years, I suppose. Well, but the
Letter was from you. I ought not to write again so quick: but you know I
never exact a Reply: especially as you never will answer what I ask you,
which I rather admire too. To be sure you have so much filled your
Letter with my Crabbe that you have told me nothing of yourself,
Calderon, and Cervantes, both of whom, I suppose, are fermenting, and
maturing, in your head. Cowell says he will come to this coast this
Summer with Don Quixote that we may read him together: so, if you should
come, you will find yourself at home. I have said all I can say about
your taking any such trouble as coming down here only to shake hands with
me, as you talk of. I never make any sort of 'hospitality' to the few
who ever do come this way, but just put a fowl in the Pot (as Don
Quixote's _ama_ might do), and hire a Shandrydan for a Drive, or a Boat
on the river, and 'There you are,' as one of Dickens' pleasant young
fellows says. But I never can ask any one to come, and out of his way,
to see me, a very ancient, and solitary, Bird indeed. But you know all
about it. 'Parlons d'autres choses,' as Sevigne says.

I was curious to know what an American, and of your Quality, would say of
Crabbe. The manner and topics (Whig, Tory, etc.) are almost obsolete in
this country, though I remember them well: how then must they appear to
you and yours? The 'Ceremoniousness' you speak of is overdone for
Crabbe's time: he overdid it in his familiar intercourse, so as to
disappoint everybody who expected 'Nature's sternest Poet,' etc.; but he
was all the while observing. I know not why he persists in his Thee and
Thou, which certainly Country Squires did not talk of, except for an
occasional Joke, at the time his Poem dates from, 1819: and I warned my
Readers in that stillborn Preface to change that form into simple 'You.'
If this Book leaves a melancholy impression on you, what then would all
his others? Leslie Stephen says his Humour is heavy (Qy is not his
Tragedy?), and wonders how Miss Austen could admire him as it a