is himself. I have not seen the 'white, round
object--which is the head of him' for some time past--not since--July.--

XXIII.

WOODBRIDGE: _Novr._ 17/74.

DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

Your Letter about Megreedy, as Thackeray used to call him, is very
interesting: I mean as connected with your Father also. Megreedy, with
all his flat face, managed to look well as Virginius, didn't he? And, as
I thought, well enough in Macbeth, except where he _would_ stand with his
mouth open (after the Witches had hailed him), till I longed to pitch
something into it out of the Pit, the dear old Pit. How came _he_ to
play Henry IV. instead of your Father, in some Play I remember at C. G.,
though I did not see it? How well I remember your Father in Falconbridge
(Young, K. John) as he looked sideway and upward before the Curtain fell
on his Speech.

Then his Petruchio: I remember his looking up, as the curtain fell at the
end, to where he knew that Henry had taken me--some very upper Box. And
I remember too his standing with his Hunting spear, looking with pleasure
at pretty Miss Foote as Rosalind. He played well what was natural to
him: the gallant easy Gentleman--I thought his Charles Surface rather
cumbrous: but he was no longer young.

Mrs. Wister quite mistook the aim of my Query about Crabbe: I asked if he
were read in America for the very reason that he is not read in England.
And in the October _Cornhill_ is an Article upon him (I hope not by
Leslie Stephen), so ignorant and self-sufficient that I am more wroth
than ever. The old Story of 'Pope in worsted stockings'--why I could
cite whole Paragraphs of as fine texture as Moliere--incapable of
Epigram, the Jackanapes says of 'our excellent Crabbe'--why I could find
fifty of the very best Epigrams in five minutes. But now do you care for
him? 'Honour bright?' as Sheridan used to say. I don't think I ever
knew a Woman who did like C., except my Mother. What makes People (this
stupid Reviewer among them) talk of worsted Stockings is because of
having read only his earlier works: when he himself talked of his Muse as

'Muse of the Mad, the Foolish, and the Poor,' {59a}

the Borough: Parish Register, etc. But it is his Tales of the Hall which
discover him in silk Stockings; the subjects, the Scenery, the Actors, of
a more Comedy kind: with, I say, Paragraphs, and Pages, of fine Moliere
style--only too often defaced by carelessness, disproportion, and
'longueurs'