To W. H. Thompson.
[9 Nov. 1874.]
My dear Master,
I think there can be no criminal breach of Confidence in your taking a Copy, if you will, of C[arlyle]’s Letter. Indeed, you are welcome to keep it:—there was but one Person else I wished to show it to, and she (a She) can do very well without it. I sent it to you directly I got it, because I thought you would be as pleased as I was with C.’s encomium on Spedding, which will console him (if he needs Consolation) for the obduracy of the World at large, myself among the number. I can indeed fully assent to Carlyle’s Admiration of Spedding’s History of the Times, as well as of the Hero who lived in them. But the Question still remains—was it worth forty years of such a Life as Spedding’s to write even so good an Account of a few, not the most critical, Years of English History, and to leave Bacon (I think) a little less well off than when S. began washing him: I
mean in the eyes of candid and sensible men, who simply supposed before that Bacon was no better than the Men of his Time, and now J. S. has proved it. I have no doubt that Carlyle takes up the Cudgels because he thinks the World is now going the other way. If Spedding’s Book had been praised by the Critics—Oh Lord!
But what a fine vigorous Letter from the old Man! When I was walking my Garden yesterday at about 11 a.m. I thought to myself ‘the Master will have had this Letter at Breakfast; and a thought of it will cross him tandis que le Prédicateur de Ste Marie soit en plein Discours, etc.’ . . .
If Lord Houghton be with you pray thank him for the first ébauche of Hyperion he sent me. Surely no one can doubt which was the first Sketch.
To Miss Anna Biddell.
12 Marine Terrace, Lowestoft.
Jan. 18/75.
Dear Miss Biddell,