You mistake. The Poacher was bought in his shell--for 3 pounds--did I
not name that price? As you desire a packing case, I will order one to
day: and I hope you will have him down on Wednesday, just when your Bank
work is over, and you will be glad of such good company. One of my
friends thought the picture must have been an anticipation of Bill Sykes:
put a cap and feathers on his head and you make him Iago, Richard the
Third, or any other aristocratic villain. I really think the picture is
a very good one of its kind: and one that you will like. {100a}
I am going to get my large Constable very lightly framed, and shall bring
it down into Suffolk with me to shew you and others. I like it more and
more.
. . . There is something poetical, and almost heroic, in this Expedition
to the Niger--the motives lofty and Christian--the issue so disastrous.
Do you remember in A. Cunningham's Scottish Songs {100b} one called 'The
Darien Song'? It begins
We will go, maidens, go,
To the primrose {100c} woods and mourn, etc.
Look for it. It applies to this business. Some Scotch young folks went
out to colonize Darien, and never came back.
Oh there were white hands wav'd,
And many a parting hail,
As their vessel stemm'd the tide,
And stretch'd her snowy sail.
I remember reading this at Aldbro', and the sound of the sea hangs about
it always, as upon the lips of a shell.
Farewell for the present. We shall soon be down amongst you.
P.S. I think Northcote drew this picture from life: and I have no doubt
there is some story attached to it. The subject may have been some great
malefactor. You know that painters like to draw such at times. Northcote
could not have painted so well but from life.
_To F. Tennyson_.
LONDON, _February_ 6, 1842.