I duly received your letter. I am just returned from staying three days
at a delightful Inn by the river Ouse, where we always go to fish. I
dare say I have told you about it before. The Inn is the cleanest, the
sweetest, the civillest, the quietest, the liveliest, and the cheapest
that ever was built or conducted. Its name, the Falcon of Bletsoe. On
one side it has a garden, then the meadows through which winds the Ouse:
on the other, the public road, with its coaches hurrying on to London,
its market people halting to drink, its farmers, horsemen, and foot
travellers. So, as one's humour is, one can have whichever phase of life
one pleases: quietude or bustle; solitude or the busy hum of men: one can
sit in the principal room with a tankard and a pipe and see both these
phases at once through the windows that open upon either. But through
all these delightful places they talk of leading railroads: a sad thing,
I am sure: quite impolitic. But Mammon is blind.
I went a week ago to see Luton, Lord Bute's place; filled with very fine
pictures, of which I have dreamt since. It is the gallery in England
that I most wish to see again: but I by no means say it is the most
valuable. A great many pictures seemed to me misnamed--especially
Correggio has to answer for some he never painted.
I am thinking of going to Naseby for a little while: after which I shall
return here: and very likely find my way back to Norfolk before long. At
all events, the middle of October will find me at Boulge, unless the
Fates are very contrary.
_To Samuel Laurence_. {75}
BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE,
_Nov_. 9/40.