. . . Do you know that I am really going to look out for some permanent
abode, which I think I am well qualified to decide on now. But in this
very judgment I may be most of all mistaken. I do not love London enough
to pitch my tent there: Woodbridge, Ipswich, or Colchester--won't one of
them do? . . .
I have been reading Burton's Anatomy {139} lately: a captivating book
certainly. That story of his going to the bridge at Oxford to listen to
the bargemen's slang, etc., he reports of the old Democritus, his
prototype: so perhaps biographers thought it must be Burton's taste also.
Or perhaps Burton took to doing it after example. I cannot help fancying
that I see the foundation (partly) of Carlyle's style in Burton: one
passage quite like part of Sartor Resartus. Much of Barton's Biography
may be picked up out of his own introduction to the Anatomy. Maurice's
Introductory Lecture I shall be very glad to have. I do not fancy I
should read his Kingdom of Christ, should I? You know.
I have had bad cold and cough which still hang about me: this damp
cottage is not good for a cure. . . . And now goodbye.
_To F. Tennyson_.
GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
[? 1843.]