Children or among
them, as you and they see good. I have lost the Faculty of choosing
Presents, you still enjoy it: so do this little Office for me. All good
and kind wishes to Wife and Family: a happy Xmas is still no idle word to
you."

"WOODBRIDGE, _Jan._ 12, '82.
['Letters,' p. 477.]

". . . The Aconite, which Mr Churchyard used to call 'New Year's Gift,'
has been out in my Garden for this fortnight past. Thrushes (and, I
think, Blackbirds) try to sing a little: and half yesterday I was
sitting, with no more apparel than in my rooms, on my Quarter-deck"
[_i.e._, the walk in the garden of Little Grange].

"_April_ 1, 1882. ['Letters,' p. 481.]

"Thank you for your Birthday Greeting--a Ceremony which, I nevertheless
think, is almost better forgotten at my time of life. But it is an old,
and healthy, custom. I do not quite shake off my Cold, and shall, I
suppose, be more liable to it hereafter. But what wonderful weather! I
see the little trees opposite my window perceptibly greener every
morning. Mr Wood persists in delaying to send the seeds of Annuals; but
I am going to send for them to-day. My Hyacinths have been gay, though
not so fine as last year's: and I have some respectable single red
Anemones--always favourites of mine.

"Aldis Wright has been spending his Easter here; and goes on to Beccles,
where he is to examine and report on the Books and MSS. of the late
George Borrow at Oulton."

* * * * *

The handwriting is shaky in this letter, and it is the last of the
series. It should have closed this article, but that I want still to
quote one more letter to my father, and a poem:--

"WOODBRIDGE, _March_ 16, 1878.
['Letters,' pp. 410, 418.]

"MY DEAR GROOME,--I have not had any _Academies_ that seemed to call for
sending severally: here are some, however (as also _Athenaeums_), which
shall go in a parcel to you, if you care to see them. Also, Munro's
Catullus, which has much interested me, bad Scholar as I am: though not
touching on some of his best Poems. However, I never cared so much for
him as has been the fashion to do for the last half century, I think. I
had a letter from Donne two days ago: it did not speak of himself as
other than well; but I thought it indicated feebleness.

"Eh! voila que j'ai deja dit tout ce que vient au bout de ma plume. Je
ne bouge pas d'ici; cependant, l'annee va son train. Toujours a vous et
a les votres, E. F. G.

"By the by, I enclose a Paper of