e would stick to his Ship, he said:
and I didn't like to leave him. Then it was Murray who misled me about
the Hague Gallery: he knew nothing about its being shut on Saturdays.
Then again we neither of us knew a word of Dutch: and I was surprised how
little was known of English in return.

But I shall say no more. I think it is the last foreign Travel I shall
ever undertake; unless I should go with you to see the Dresden Madonna:
to which there is one less impediment now Holland is not to be gone
through. . . . I am the Colour of a Lobster with Sea-faring: and my Eyes
smart: so Good-Bye. Let me hear of you. Ever yours E. F. G.

Oh dear!--Rembrandt's Dissection--where and how did I miss that?

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_Aug._ 5/63.

MY DEAR COWELL,

I don't hear from you: I rather think you are deterred by those _Birds_
which I asked you to print (in my last Letter) with some Correction,
etc., of your own: and which you have not found Time or Inclination to
get done. But don't let anything of this sort prevent your writing to me
now and then: no one can be more utterly indifferent than I am whether
these Birds are printed or not: and I suppose I distinctly told you _not_
to put yourself to any Trouble. Indeed I dare say I should only be bored
with the Copies when they were printed: for I don't know a Soul here who
would care for the Thing if it were ten times as well done as I have done
it: nor do I care for Translation or Original, myself. Oh dear, when I
do look into Homer, Dante, and Virgil, AEschylus, Shakespeare, etc.,
those Orientals look--silly! Don't resent my saying so. _Don't_ they? I
am now a good [deal] about in a new Boat I have built, and thought (as
Johnson took Cocker's Arithmetic with him on travel, because he shouldn't
exhaust it) so I would take Dante and Homer with me, instead of Mudie's
Books, which I read through directly. I took Dante by way of slow
Digestion: not having looked at him for some years: but I am glad to find
I relish him as much as ever: he atones with the Sea; as you know does
the Odyssey--these are the Men!

I am just returned in my Ship from Holland--where I stayed--two days!--and
was so glad to rush away home after being imprisoned in a sluggish un-
sweet Canal in Rotterdam: and after tearing about to Amsterdam, the
Hague, etc., to see things which were neither new nor remarkable to me
though I had never seen them before--except in Pictures,