erhaps! What sort of a place is Lichfield?

I say nothing about French Revolutions, which are too big for a little
letter. I think we shall all be in a war before the year; I know not how
else the French can keep peace at home but by quarrelling abroad. But
'come what come may.'

My old friend Major Moor died rather suddenly last Saturday: {235} and
this next Saturday is to be buried in the Church to which he used to take
me when I was a boy. He has not left a better man behind him.

BOULGE, _Friday_.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

. . . I suppose by a 'Minster Pool' in Lichfield you mean a select
coterie of Prebends, Canons, etc. These would never trouble me. I
should much prefer the society of the Doctor, the Lawyer (if tolerably
honest) and the singing men. I love a small Cathedral town; and the
dignified respectability of the Church potentates is a part of the
pleasure. I sometimes think of Salisbury: and have altogether long had
an idea of settling at forty years old. Perhaps it will be at
Woodbridge, after all!

_To F. Tennyson_.

BOULGE, _May_ 4, 1848.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

When you talk of two idle men not taking the trouble to keep up a little
intercourse by letters, you do not, in conscience, reflect upon me; who,
you know, am very active in answering almost by return of post. It is
some six months since you must have got my last letter, full of most
instructive advice concerning my namesake; of whom, and of which, you say
nothing. How much has he borrowed of you? Is he now living on the top
of your hospitable roof? Do you think him the most ill-used of men? I
see great advertisements in the papers about your great Grimsby Railway.
. . . Does it pay? does it pay all but you? who live only on the fine
promises of the lawyers and directors engaged in it? You know England
has had a famous winter of it for commercial troubles: my family has not
escaped the agitation: I even now doubt if I must not give up my daily
two-pennyworth of cream and take to milk: and give up my Spectator and
Athenaeum. I don't trouble myself much about all this: for, unless the
kingdom goes to pieces by national bankruptcy, I shall probably have
enough to live on: and, luckily, every year I want less. What do you
think of my not going up to London this year; to see exhibitions, to hear
operas, and so on? Indeed I do not think I shall go: and I have no great
desire to go. I hear of nothing new in any way worth going up for.