20 March, [1881.]

My dear Lady,

I have let the Full Moon pass because I thought you had written to me so lately, and so kindly, about our lost Spedding, that I would not call on you too soon again. Of him I will say nothing except that his Death has made me recall very many passages in his Life in which I was partly concerned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with Tennyson in the May of 1835. ‘VoilÀ bien long temps de Ça!’ His Father and Mother were both alive—he, a wise man, who mounted his Cob after Breakfast, and was at his Farm till Dinner at two—then away again till Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but always courteous, and quite content with any company his Son might bring to the house so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would have gone whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets not to like them or their Trade: Shelley, for a time living among the Lakes: Coleridge at Southey’s (whom perhaps he had a respect for—Southey, I mean), and Wordsworth, whom I do not think he valued. He was rather jealous of ‘Jem,’ who might have done available service in the world, he thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson conning over the Morte d’Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which helped to make up the two Volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Mrs. Bristow, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy, if you know of such a Person in Nickleby.

At the end of May we went to lodge for a week at Windermere—where Wordsworth’s new volume of Yarrow Revisited reached us. W. was then at his home: but Tennyson would not go to visit him: and of course I did not: nor even saw him.

You have, I suppose, the Carlyle Reminiscences: of which I will say nothing except that, much as we outsiders gain by them, I think that, on the whole, they had better have been kept unpublished—for some while at least. As also thinks Carlyle’s Niece, who is surprised that Mr. Froude, whom her Uncle trusted above all men for the gift of Reticence, should have been in so much hurry to publish what was left to his Judgment to publish or no. But Carlyle himself, I think, should have stipulated for Delay, or retrenchment, if publisht at all.

Here is a dull and coldish Day after the fine ones we have had—which kept me out of doors as long as they lasted. Now one turns to the Fireside again. To-morrow is Equinox Day; when, if the Wind should return to North East, North East will it blow till June 21, as we all believe down here. My Eyes are better, I presume to say: but not what they were even before Christmas. Pray let me hear how you are, and believe me ever the same

E. F.G.

Oh! I doubted about sending you what I yet will send, as you already have what it refers to. It really calls for no comment from any one who does not know the Greek; those who do would probably repudiate it.