Don’t forget to sound Murray at some good opportunity about a Selection from Crabbe. Of course he won’t let me do it, though I could do it better than any he would be likely to employ: for you know I rely on my Appreciation of what others do, not on what I can do myself.
The ‘Parcel’ you write of has not been sent me here: but I shall find it when I return, and will write to you again. I puzzle my Brains to remember what the ‘Conscript’ is.
I have been reading, and reducing to one volume from two (more meo), a trashy Book, ‘Bernard’s Recollections of the Stage,’ with some good recollections of the Old Actors, up to Macklin and Garrick. But, of all people’s, one can’t trust Actors’ Stories. In ‘Lethe,’ where your Garrick figures in Sir Geoffrey, also figured Woodward, as ‘The Fine Gentleman’; so I think, at least, is the Title of a very capital mezzotint I have of him in Character,
Oh! famous is your Story of Lord Chatham and the Bishops; [68] be sure you set it afloat again in print.
You don’t tell me if Trench be recovered: but I shall conclude from your Silence that, at any rate, he is not now seriously ill.
Now I hear my good Brother come in from Morning Mass, and we shall have Breakfast. He is really capital to sail about with. I read your letter yesterday while sitting out on a Bench with her—his Wife—a brave Woman, of the O’Dowd sort; and she wanted to know all about you and yours. We like Ramsgate very much: genial air: pleasant Country: good Harbour, Piers, etc.: and the Company, though overflowing, not showy, nor vulgar: but seemingly come to make the most of a Holiday. I am surprized how little of the Cockney, in its worse aspect, is to be seen.
To E. B. Cowell.
Market hill: Woodbridge.
Septr. 5/65.
My dear Cowell,
Let me hear of you: I don’t forget, though I don’t see, you. Nor am I so wrapt up in my Ship as not to have many a day on which I should be very glad