ue: of the half
sentimental kind of Comedy, as Comedies then were (1815) with a
serious--very serious--element in it--taken from your Mother's Friend's,
Mrs. Opie's (what a sentence!) story of 'Father and Daughter'--the
seduced Daughter, who finds her distracted Father writing her name on a
Coffin he has drawn on the Wall of his Cell--All ends happily in the
Play, however, whatever may be the upshot of the Novel. But an odd thing
is, that this poor Girl's name is 'Fitz Harding'--and the Character was
played by Miss Foote: whether before, or after, her seduction by Colonel
Berkeley I know not. The Father was played by Young.

Sir Frederick Pollock has been to see me here for two days, {15} and put
me up to much that was going on in the civilized World. He was very
agreeable indeed: and I believe his Visit did him good. What are you
going to do with your Summer? Surely never came Summer with more
Verdure: and I somehow think we shall have more rain to keep the Verdure
up, than for the last few years we have had.

I am quite sure of the merit of George Eliot, and (I should have thought)
of a kind that would suit me. But I have not as yet found an Appetite
for her. I have begun taking the Cornhill that I may read Annie
Thackeray--but I have not found Appetite for her as yet. Is it that one
recoils from making so many new Acquaintances in Novels, and retreats
upon one's Old Friends, in Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Sir Walter? Oh, I
read the last as you have lately been reading--the Scotch Novels, I mean:
I believe I should not care for the Ivanhoes, Kenilworths, etc., any
more. But Jeanie Deans, the Antiquary, etc., I shall be theirs as long
as I am yours sincerely

E. F.G.

VII.

WOODBRIDGE: _August_ 9, [1872].

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I think I shall hear from you once again before you go abroad. To Rome!
My Brother Peter also is going to winter there: but you would not have
much in common with him, I think, so I say nothing of an Acquaintance
between you.

I have been having Frederick Tennyson with me down here. {16a} He has
come to England (from Jersey where his home now is) partly on Business,
and partly to bring over a deaf old Gentleman who has discovered the
Original Mystery of Free-masonry, by means of Spiritualism. The
Freemasons have for Ages been ignorant, it seems, of the very Secret
which all their Emblems and Signs refer to: and the question is, if they
care enough for their own Myste