I am too late to wish you a Happy Christmas; so must wish you a happy New
Year. Write to me here, and tell me (in however few words) how you
prospered in your journey to Italy: how you all are there: and how your
Book progresses. I saw Harvest Home advertised in Fraser: and I have
heard from Mrs. Alfred it is so admired that Parker is to print two
thousand copies of the Volume. I am glad of this: and I think, little
ambitious or vain as you really are, you will insensibly be pleased at
gaining your proper Station in public Celebrity. Had I not known what an
invidious office it is to meddle with such Poems, and how assuredly
people would have said that one had helped to clip away the Best Poems,
and the best part of them, I should have liked to advise you in the
selection: a matter in which I feel confidence. But you would not have
agreed with me any more than others: though on different grounds: and so
in all ways it was, and is, and will be, best to say nothing more on the
subject. I am very sure that, of whatever your Volume is composed, you
will make public almost the only Volume of Verse, except Alfred's, worthy
of the name.
I hear from Mrs. Alfred they are got to their new abode in the Isle of
Wight. I have been into Norfolk: and am now come to spend Christmas in
this place, where, as you have been here, you can fancy me. Old Crabbe
is as brave and hearty as ever: drawing designs of Churches: and we are
all now reading Moore's Memoirs with considerable entertainment: I cannot
say the result of it in one's mind is to prove Moore a Great Man: though
it certainly does not leave him altogether 'The Poor Creature' that Mr.
Allingham reduced him to. I also amuse myself with poking out some
Persian which E. Cowell would inaugurate me with: I go on with it because
it is a point in common with him, and enables us to study a little
together. He and his wife are at Oxford: and his Pracrit Grammar is to
be out in a few days.
I have settled upon no new Abode: but have packed up all my few goods in
a neighbouring Farm House {287a} (that one near Woodbridge I took you
to), and will now float about for a year and visit some friends. Perhaps
I shall get down to the Isle of Wight one day: also to Shropshire, to see
Allen: to Bath to a Sister. But you can always direct hither, since old
Crabbe is only too glad to have some letters to pay for, and forward to
me. . . . We have one of the old fashioned winters, snow and frost: not
fulfilling the word of those who were quite sure the seasons were
altered. Farewell, my dear Frederic.