Lowestoft: Aug. 24, [1874.]

Dear Mrs. Kemble,

Your letter reached me this morning: and you see I lose no time in telling you that, as I hear from Pollock, Donne is allowed £350 a year retiring Pension. So I think neither he nor his friends have any reason to complain. His successor in the office is named (I think) ‘Piggott’ [50b]—Pollock thinks a good choice. Lord Hertford brought the old and the new Examiners together to Dinner: and all went off well. Perhaps Donne himself may have told you all this before now. He was to be, about this time, with the Blakesleys at Whitby or Filey. I have not heard any of these particulars from himself: nothing indeed since I saw him in London.

Pollock was puzzled by an entry in Macready’s Journal—1831 or 1832—‘Received Thackeray’s Tragedy’ with some such name as ‘Retribution.’ I told Pollock I was sure it was not W. M. T., who (especially at that time) had more turn to burlesque than real Tragedy: and sure that he would have told me of it then, whether accepted or rejected—as rejected it was. Pollock thought for some while that, in spite of the comic Appearance we keep up, we should each of us rise up from the Grave with a MS. Tragedy in our hands, etc. However, he has become assured it was some other Thackeray: I suppose one mentioned by PlanchÉ as a Dramatic Dilettante—of the same Family, I think, as W. M. T.

Spedding has sent me the concluding Volume of his Bacon: the final summing up simple, noble, deeply pathetic—rather on Spedding’s own Account than his Hero’s, for whose Vindication so little has been done by the sacrifice of forty years of such a Life as Spedding’s. Positively, nearly all the new matter which S. has produced makes against, rather than for, Bacon: and I do think the case would have stood better if Spedding had only argued from the old materials, and summed up his Vindication in one small Volume some thirty-five years ago.

I have been sunning myself in Dickens—even in his later and very inferior ‘Mutual Friend,’ and ‘Great Expectations’—Very inferior to his best: but with things better than any one else’s best, caricature as they may be. I really must go and worship at Gadshill, as I have worshipped at Abbotsford, though with less Reverence, to be sure. But I must look on Dickens as a mighty Benefactor to Mankind. [52]

This is shamefully bad writing of mine—very bad manners, to put any one—especially a Lady—to the trouble and pain of deciphering. I hope all about Donne is legible, for you will be glad of it. It is Lodging-house Pens and Ink that is partly to blame for this scrawl. Now, don’t answer till I write you something better: but believe me ever and always yours

E. F.G.