I suppose it must seem strange to you that I should like writing letters:
and indeed I don't know that I do like it in general. However, here I
see no companions, so I am pleased to talk to my old friend John Allen:
which indeed keeps alive my humanity very much. . . . I have been about
to divers Bookshops and have bought several books--a Bacon's Essays,
Evelyn's Sylva, Browne's Religio Medici, Hazlitt's Poets, etc. The
latter I bought to add to my Paradise, which however has stood still of
late. I mean to write out Carew's verses in this letter for you, and
your Paradise. As to the Religio, I have read it again: and keep my
opinion of it: except admiring the eloquence, and beauty of the notions,
more. But the arguments are not more convincing. Nevertheless, it is a
very fine piece of English: which is, I believe, all that you contend
for. Hazlitt's Poets is the best selection I have ever seen. I have
read some Chaucer too, which I like. In short I have been reading a good
deal since I have been here: but not much in the way of knowledge.
. . . As I lay in bed this morning, half dozing, I walked in imagination
all the way from Tenby to Freestone by the road I know so well: by the
water-mill, by Gumfreston, Ivy tower, and through the gates, and the long
road that leads to Carew.
Now for the poet Carew:
1.
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose:
For in your beauty's orient deep,
The flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
2.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day:
For in pure love did Heav'n prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
3.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when June is past:
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
4.
Ask me no more where those stars light
That downward fall at dead of night:
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
5.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest:
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
These lines are exaggerated, as all in Charles's time, but very
beautiful. . . .
Yours most affectionately, E.