y Shelves at my age of seventy-five. I have
already given away to Friends all that I had of any rarity or value,
especially if over octavo.

By the way there was one good observation, I think, in Mrs. Oliphant's
superficial, or hasty, History of English 18th Century Literature, viz.,
that when the Beatties, Blacks, and other recognized Poets of the Day
were all writing in a 'classical' way, and tried to persuade Burns to do
the like, it was certain Old Ladies who wrote so many of the Ballads,
which, many of them, have passed as ancient, 'Sir Patrick Spence' for
one, I think.

Our Spring flowers have been almost all spoilt by Winter weather, and the
Trees before my window only just now beginning to

Stand in a mist of Green,

as Tennyson sings. Let us hope their Verdure, late arrayed, will last
the longer. I continue pretty well, with occasional reminders from
Bronchitis, who is my established Brownie.

_To S. Laurence_.

WOODBRIDGE. _Tuesday_,
[_June_ 12, 1883].

MY DEAR LAURENCE,

It is very kind of you to remember one who does so little to remind you
of himself. Your drawing of Allen always seemed to me excellent, for
which reason it was that I thought his Wife should have it, as being the
Record of her husband in his younger days. So of the portrait of
Tennyson which I gave his Wife. Not that I did not value them myself,
but because I did value them, as the most agreeable Portraits I knew of
the two men; and, for that very reason, presented them to those whom they
were naturally dearer to than even to myself. I have never liked any
Portrait of Tennyson since he grew a Beard; Allen, I suppose, has kept
out of that.

If I do not write, it is because I have absolutely nothing to tell you
that you have not known for the last twenty years. Here I live still,
reading, and being read to, part of my time; walking abroad three or four
times a day, or night, in spite of wakening a Bronchitis, which has
lodged like the household 'Brownie' within; pottering about my Garden (as
I have just been doing) and snipping off dead Roses like Miss Tox; and
now and then a visit to the neighbouring Seaside, and a splash to Sea in
one of the Boats. I never see a new Picture, nor hear a note of Music
except when I drum out some old Tune in Winter on an Organ, which might
almost be carried about the Streets with a handle to turn, and a Monkey
on the top of it. So I go on, living a life far too comfortable as
compared