Woodbridge: Nov^r. 18/73.

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

I should have written to you before, but that I was waiting for some account, for better or worse, of our friend Donne; who has been seriously ill this Fortnight and more. I don’t know what his original Ailment was, unless a Cold; but the Effect has been to leave him so weak, that even now the Doctor fears for any Relapse which he might not be strong enough to bear. He had been for a Visit to friends in the West of England: and became ill directly he returned to London. You may think it odd I don’t know what was his Illness; but Mowbray, who has told me all I know, did not tell me that: and so I did not ask, as I could do no good by knowing. Perhaps it is simply a Decay, or Collapse, of Body, or Nerves—or even Mind:—a Catastrophe which I never thought unlikely with Donne, who has toiled and suffered so much, for others rather than for himself; and keeping all his Suffering to himself. He wrote me a letter about himself a week ago; cheerful, and telling me of Books he read: so as no one would guess he was so ill; but a Letter from Mowbray by the same Post told me he was still in a precarious Condition. I had wished to tell you that he was better, if not well: but I may wait some time for that: and so I will write now:—with the Promise that I will write again directly there is anything else to tell.

Here my Reader comes to give me an Instalment of Tichborne: so I shall shut up, perhaps till To-morrow.

The Lord Chief Justice and Co. have just decided to adjourn the Trial for ten Days, till Witnesses arrive from your side of the Atlantic. My Reader has just adjourned to some Cake and Porter—I tell him not to hurry—while I go on with this Letter. To tell you that, I might almost have well adjourned writing ‘sine die’ (can you construe?), for I don’t think I have more to tell you now. Only that I am reading—Crabbe! And I want you to tell me if he is read on that side of the Atlantic from which we are expecting Tichborne Witnesses.

(Reader finishes Cake and Porter: and we now adjourn to ‘All the Year Round.’)

10 p.m. ‘All the Year Round’ read—part of it—and Reader departed.

Pray do tell me if any one reads Crabbe in America; nobody does here, you know, but myself; who bore about it. Does Mrs. Wister, who reads many things? Does Mrs. Kemble, now she has the Atlantic between her and the old Country?

‘Over the Forth I look to the North,
But what is the North and its Hielands to me?
The North and the East gie small ease to my breast,
The far foreign land and the wide rolling Sea.’ [37]

I think that last line will bring the Tears into Mrs. Kemble’s Eyes—which I can’t find in the Photograph she sent me. Yet they are not extinguisht, surely?

I read in some AthenÆum that A. Tennyson was changing his Publisher again: and some one told me that it was in consequence of the resigning Publisher having lost money by his contract with the Poet; which was, to pay him £1000 per Quarter for the exclusive sale of his Poems. It was a Woodbridge Literati who told me this, having read it in a Paper called ‘The Publisher.’ More I know not.

A little more such stuff I might write: but I think here is enough of it. For this Night, anyhow: so I shall lick the Ink from my Pen; and smoke one Pipe, not forgetting you while I do so; and if nothing turns up To-morrow, here is my Letter done, and I remaining yours always sincerely

E. F.G.