d in _his_ letters. Indeed one of the processes of
letter-and memoir-study (the memoir as has been said is
practically an "open" letter) is that of comparing the
treatments of the same subject by different persons--say of
the Great Fire by Pepys and Evelyn, of the Riots of '80 by
Walpole and Johnson. He himself, as will be seen, calls the
letter given below "not very interesting." It seems to me
very interesting indeed: and likely to be increasingly so as
time goes on. Few things could be more characteristic of the
writer than his way of "visiting his sister" by living alone
in lodgings all _day_ for a month. The "_old_
age"--forty-five--is hardly less so. The allusions to
"Alfred" (Tennyson); "old" Thackeray, for whom he constantly
keeps the affectionate school and college use of the
adjective; Landor[124] (who unluckily did _not_ die at Bath
though he might have done so but for one of the last and
least creditable of his eccentricities); Beckford ("Old
Vathek"), and a fourth "old," Rogers (who was one of
FitzGerald's aversions); Oxford (as yet almost unstained by
any modernities spiritual or material); and Bath[125] (to
remain still longer a "haunt of ancient peace")--are
precious. The fifth "old," Spedding, who devoted chiefly to
Bacon talents worthy of more varied exercise, was one of the
innermost Tennyson set, as was "Harry" Lushington, who died
very soon after this letter was written. "Your Book" is F.
Tennyson's _Days and Hours_, a volume of poetry while
reading which probably many people have wondered in what
respect it came short of really great poetry, though they
felt it did so.

44. TO FREDERIC TENNYSON

BATH May 7/54.

My dear Frederic,

You see to what fashionable places I am reduced in my old Age. The truth
is however I am come here by way of Visit to a sister I have scarce seen
these six years; my visit consisting in this that I live alone in a
lodging of my own by day, and spend two or three hours with her in the
Evening. This has been my way of Life for three weeks, and will be so
for some ten days more: after which I talk of flying back to more native
counties. I was to have gone on to see Alfred in his "Island Home" from
here: but it appears he goes to London about the same time I quit this
place: so I must and shall defer my Visit to him. Perhaps I sha