country town, a cathedral town perhaps! What sort of a place is Lichfield?
I say nothing about French Revolutions, which are too big for a little letter. I think we shall all be in a war before the year; I know not how else the French can keep peace at home but by quarrelling abroad. But ‘come what come may.’
My old friend Major Moor died rather suddenly last Saturday: [235] and this next Saturday is to be buried in the Church to which he used to take me when I was a boy. He has not left a better man behind him.
Boulge, Friday.
My dear Allen,
. . . I suppose by a ‘Minster Pool’ in Lichfield you mean a select coterie of Prebends, Canons, etc. These would never trouble me. I should much prefer the society of the Doctor, the Lawyer (if tolerably honest) and the singing men. I love a small Cathedral town; and the dignified respectability of the Church potentates is a part of the pleasure. I sometimes think of Salisbury: and have altogether long had an idea of settling at forty years old. Perhaps it will be at Woodbridge, after all!
Boulge, May 4, 1848.
My dear Frederic,
When you talk of two idle men not taking the trouble to keep up a little intercourse by letters, you do not, in conscience, reflect upon me; who, you know, am very active in answering almost by return of post. It is some six months since you must have got my last letter, full of most instructive advice concerning my namesake; of whom, and of which, you say nothing. How much has he borrowed of you? Is he now living on the top of your hospitable roof? Do you think him the most ill-used of men? I see great advertisements in the papers about your great Grimsby Railway. . . . Does it pay? does it pay all but you? who live only on the fine promises of the lawyers and directors engaged in it? You know England has had a famous winter of it for commercial troubles: my family has not escaped the agitation: I even now doubt if I must not give up my daily two-pennyworth of cream and take to milk: and give up my Spectator and Athenæum. I don’t trouble myself much about all this: for, unless the kingdom goes to pieces by national bankruptcy, I shall probably have enough to live on: and, luckily, every year I want less. What do you think of my not going up to London this year; to see exhibitions, to hear operas, and so on? Indeed I do not think I shall go: and I