Well, but I have other Company too—Don Quixote—the 4th Part: where those Snobs, the Duke and Duchess—(how vulgar Great Folks then, as now!) make a Fool and Butt of him. Cervantes should have had more respect for his own Creation: but, I suppose, finding that all the Great Snobs could only laugh at the earlier part, he thought he had better humour them. This very morning I read the very verses you admired to me twenty years ago—
Ven muerte tan escondida, etc.
They are quoted ironically in Part iv. Lib. vii. Ch. 38.
Ever yours, E. F. G.
My dear Cowell,
When you have leisure you will let me know of your being settled at Cambridge? I also want to have your exact Address because I want to send you the Dryden and Crabbe’s Life I promised you. At present you are busy with your Inaugural Address, I suppose; beside that you feel scarce at home yet in your new Quarters.
Mr. Allenby told me on Wednesday that Mrs. Charlesworth was really up again, and even got to Cambridge. Please to remember me to her, and to all your Party.
My Ship is still afloat: but I have scarce used her during the last cold weather. I was indeed almost made ill sleeping two nights in that cold Cabin. I may, however, run to Lowestoft and back; but by the end of next week I suppose she (the Ship) will be laid up in the Mud; my Men will have eaten the Michaelmas Goose which I always regale them with on shutting up shop; and I may come home to my Fire here to read ‘The Woman in White’ and play at Patience:—which (I mean the Game at Cards so called) I now do by myself for an hour or two every night. Perhaps old Montaigne may drop in to chat with and comfort me: but Sophocles, Don Quixote, and Boccaccio—I think I must leave them with their Halo of Sea and Sunshine about them. I have, however, found the second volume of
Sophocles; and may perhaps return to look for Ajax and Deianeira.