Bedford, August 27/45.
Dear good Allen,
. . . I came here a week ago, and am paying my usual visits at the Brownes’ and at Airy’s. [196] I also purpose going to Naseby for two days very soon; and after that I shall retire slowly homeward; not to move, I suppose (except it be for some days to London) till next summer comes again!
I am just now staying with W. B. and his wife. . . . The Father and Mother of Mrs. W. Browne bought old Mrs. Piozzi’s house at Streatham thirty-five years ago; all the Sir Joshua portraits therein, which they sold directly afterward for a song; and all the furniture, of which some yet helps to fill the house I now stay in. In the bedroom I write in is Dr. Johnson’s own bookcase and secretaire; with looking glass in the panels which often reflected his uncouth shape. His own bed is also in the house; but I do not sleep in it.
I am reading Selwyn’s Correspondence, a remarkable book, as all such records of the mind of a whole generation must be. Carlyle writes me word his Cromwell papers will be out in October; and that then we are all to be convinced that Richard had no hump to his back. I am strong in favour of the hump; I do not think the common sense of two centuries is apt to be deceived in such a matter.
Now if your time is not wholly filled up, pray do give me one line to say you have not wholly given me up as a turncoat. I would rather have sat with you on the cliffs of St. David’s than done anything I have done for the last six months. Believe that, please. And now good bye, my dear fellow. The harvest promises very well here about; but I expect to find less prosperity at Naseby.
To Bernard Barton.
Bedford, Septr. 8/45.
Dear Barton,