. . . London was very close and nasty: so I am glad to get down here:
where, however, I am not (as at present proposed) to stay long: my Father
requiring my services in Suffolk early in October. Laurence has made a
sort of promise to come and see me here next Saturday: I wanted him to
come down with me while the weather was fine. The place is very desert,
but a battle was probably fought here 200 years ago, as an Obelisk
planted by my Papa on the wrong site intimates. Poor Carlyle got into
sad error from that deluding Obelisk: which Liston used to call (in this
case with truth) an Obstacle. I am afraid Carlyle will make a mad mess
of Cromwell and his Times: what a poor figure Fairfax will cut! I am
very tired of these heroics; and I can worship no man who has but a
square inch of brains more than myself. I think there is but one Hero:
and that is the Maker of Heroes.
Here I am reading Virgil's delightful Georgics for the first time. They
really attune perfectly well with the plains and climate of Naseby. Valpy
(whose edition I have) cannot quite follow Virgil's plough--in its
construction at least. But the main acts of agriculture seem to have
changed very little, and the alternation of green and corn crops is a
good dodge. And while I heard the fellows going out with their horses to
plough as I sat at breakfast this morning, I also read--
Libra die somnique pares ubi fecerit horas,
Et medium luci atque umbris jam dividit orbem,
Exercete, viri, tauros, serite hordea campis
Usque sub extremum brumae intractabilis imbrem. {134}
One loves Virgil somehow.
_To Bernard Barton_.
[NASEBY], _Septr_. 22/42.