dred Years are past; when, after too
much Admiration (perhaps) and then a Reaction of undue Dis-esteem, Men
have settled into some steady Opinion on the subject: supposing always
that the Hero survives so long, which of itself goes so far to decide the
Question. No doubt A. T. will do _that_.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

10 MARINE TERRACE,
LOWESTOFT.
_Febr._ 23/60.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

'Me voila ici' still! having weathered it out so long. No bad Place, I
assure you, though you who are accustomed to Pall Mall, Clubs, etc.,
wouldn't like it. Mudie finds one out easily: and the London Library
too: and altogether I can't complain of not getting such drowsy Books as
I want. Hakluyt lasted a long while: then came Captain Cook, whom I
hadn't read since I was a Boy, and whom I was very glad to see again. But
he soon evaporates in his large Type Quartos. I can hardly manage
Emerson Tennent's Ceylon: a very dry Catalogue Raisonnee of the Place. A
little Essay of De Quincey's gave me a better Idea of it (as I suppose)
in some twenty or thirty pages. Anyhow, I prefer Lowestoft, considering
the Snakes, Sand-leaches, Mosquitos, etc. I suppose Russell's Indian
Diary is over-coloured: but I feel sure it's true in the Main: and he has
the Art to make one feel in the thick of it; quite enough in the Thick,
however. Sir C. Napier came here to try and get the Beachmen to enlist
in the Naval Reserve. Not one would go: they won't give up their
Independence: and so really half starve here during Winter. Then Spring
comes and they go and catch the Herrings which, if left alone, would
multiply by Millions by Autumn: and so kill their Golden Goose. They are
a strange set of Fellows. I think a Law ought to be made against their
Spring Fishing: more important, for their own sakes, than Game Laws.

I laid out half a crown on your Fraser {13}: and liked much of it very
much: especially the Beginning about the Advantage the Novelist has over
the Play-writer. A little too much always about Miss Austen, whom yet I
think quite capital in a Circle I have found quite unendurable to walk
in. Thackeray's first Number was famous, I thought: his own little
Roundabout Paper so pleasant: but the Second Number, I say, lets the
Cockney in already: about Hogarth: Lewes is vulgar: and I don't think one
can care much for Thackeray's Novel. He is always talking so of himself,
too. I have been very glad to find I could take to a Novel again, in
Trollo