bout to inhabit this new house alone,
and I cannot but wish to add my company to them now and then. . . .

'My dear boy, God bless thee a thousand times over! When are we to
see thee? How long are you going to be at Paris? What have you been
doing? The drawing you sent me was very pretty. So you don't like
Raphael! Well, I am his inveterate admirer: and say, with as little
affectation as I can, that his worst scrap fills my head more than all
Rubens and Paul Veronese together--"the mind, the mind, Master
Shallow!" You think this cant, I dare say: but I say it truly,
indeed. Raphael's are the only pictures that cannot be described: no
one can get words to describe their perfection. Next to him, I
retreat to the Gothic imagination, and love the mysteries of old
chairs, Sir Rogers, etc. in which thou, my dear boy, art and shalt be
a Raphael. To depict the true old English gentleman, is as great a
work as to depict a Saint John, and I think in my heart I would rather
have the former than the latter. There are plenty of pictures in
London--some good Water-colours by Lewis--Spanish things. Two or
three very vulgar portraits by Wilkie, at the Exhibition: and a big
one of Columbus, half good, and half bad. There is always a spice of
vulgarity about Wilkie. There is an Eastlake, but I missed it. Etty
has boats full of naked backs as usual: but what they mean, I didn't
stop to enquire. He has one picture, however, of the Bridge of Sighs
in Venice, which is sublime: though I believe nobody saw it, or
thought about it but myself.'

About the same time that FitzGerald went to Boulge, George Crabbe, the
Poet's eldest son and biographer, was appointed to the Vicarage of the
adjoining parish of Bredfield, and a friendship sprang up between them
which was only terminated by Mr. Crabbe's death in 1857.

_To John Allen_.

BOULGE HALL, WOODBRIDGE,
_October_ 31, 1835.

DEAR ALLEN,

I don't know what has come over me of late, that I have not written to
you, nor any body else for several months. I am sure it is not from any
decrease of affection towards you. I now begin a letter merely on the
score of wanting one from you: to let me know how you are; and Mrs. Allen
too, especially. I hope to hear good news of her. Many things may have
happened to you since I saw you: you may be a Bishop, for anything I
know. I have been in Suffolk ever since I saw