to their preservation. People had often dug about the field before and found nothing; and we tried two or three other spots with no success. I am going to dig once more in a place where tradition talks of a large burial of men and horses. . . .
How long I shall yet be here I know not: but not long I doubt. I dare say I shall pass through London on my way to Suffolk: and then perhaps see the trans-Atlantic Secretary. [138]
Don’t trouble yourself to write answers to my gossip. I have just been at our Church where we have had five clergymen to officiate: two in shovel-hats. Our Vicar is near ninety; we have two curates: and an old Clergyman and his Archdeacon son came on a visit. The son having a shovel-hat, of course the Father could not be left behind. Shovel-hats (you know) came into use with the gift of Tongs.
To John Allen.
[Boulge Cottage.]
Nov. 18/42.
My dear Allen,
. . . Do you know that I am really going to look out for some permanent abode, which I think I am well qualified to decide on now. But in this very judgment I may be most of all mistaken. I do not love London enough to pitch my tent there: Woodbridge,
Ipswich, or Colchester—won’t one of them do? . . .
I have been reading Burton’s Anatomy [139] lately: a captivating book certainly. That story of his going to the bridge at Oxford to listen to the bargemen’s slang, etc., he reports of the old Democritus, his prototype: so perhaps biographers thought it must be Burton’s taste also. Or perhaps Burton took to doing it after example. I cannot help fancying that I see the foundation (partly) of Carlyle’s style in Burton: one passage quite like part of Sartor Resartus. Much of Barton’s Biography may be picked up out of his own introduction to the Anatomy. Maurice’s Introductory Lecture I shall be very glad to have. I do not fancy I should read his Kingdom of Christ, should I? You know.
I have had bad cold and cough which still hang about me: this damp cottage is not good for a cure. . . . And now goodbye.