On Thursday I move towards Norwich; where I see Donne, hear some music, and go to Geldestone. But before this month is over, I hope to be at my Cottage again, where I have my garden to drain, and other important matters.
Do you know I have been greatly tempted to move my quarters from Boulge to this country; so exact a place have I found to suit me. But we will wait.
My noble Preacher Matthews [197] is dead! He had a long cold, which he promoted in all ways of baptizing, watching late and early, travelling in rain, etc., he got worse; but would send for no Doctor, the Lord would raise him up if it were good for him, etc. Last Monday this cold broke out into Typhus fever;
and on Thursday he died! I had been out to Naseby for three days, and as I returned on Friday at dusk I saw a coffin carrying down the street: I knew whose it must be. I would have given a great deal to save his life; which might certainly have been saved with common precaution. He died in perfect peace, approving all the principles of his life to be genuine. I am going this afternoon to attend his Funeral. . . . Cromwell is to be out in October; and Laurence has been sent to Archdeacon Berners’s to make a copy of Oliver’s miniature.
To W. B. Donne.
Geldestone, Septr. 23/45.
Dear Donne,
I left one volume of your Swift with good Mrs. Johnson at Norwich; and the other with your Mother at Worship’s house in Yarmouth. So I trust you are in a fair way to get them again.
I sat through one Concert and one Oratorio; [198] and on Thursday went to Yarmouth, which I took a great fancy to. The sands were very good, I assure you; and then when one is weary of the sea, there is the good old town to fall back on. There is Mr. Gooch the Bookseller too; he and his books a great acquisition. I called on Dawson Turner, and in an incredibly short space of time saw several books of coats of Arms, Churches, Refectories, pyxes, cerements, etc.
Manage to read De Quincey’s Article on Wordsworth in the last number of Tail’s Magazine. It is very incomplete, like all De Quincey’s things, but has grand things in it; grand sounds of sense if nothing else. I am glad to see he sets up Daddy’s early Ballads against the Excursion and other Sermons.