delightful, about the Treasure to be
sometimes found in a weak Vessel like Proclus. That I think is very
Platonic; all the more for such things coming only now and then, which
makes them tell. Modern Books lose by being over-crowded with good
things.

* * * * *

In the course of this year 1871, FitzGerald parted with his little yacht
the Scandal, so called, he said, because it was the staple product of
Woodbridge, and on September 4 he wrote to me:--

WOODBRIDGE: _Septr._ 4/71.

'I run over to Lowestoft occasionally for a few days, but do not abide
there long: no longer having my dear little Ship for company. I saw her
there looking very smart under her new owner ten days ago, and I felt so
at home when I was once more on her Deck that--Well: I content myself
with sailing on the river Deben, looking at the Crops as they grow green,
yellow, russet, and are finally carried away in the red and blue Waggons
with the sorrel horse.'

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[1871].

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . A night or two ago I was reading old Thackeray's Roundabouts; and
(sign of a good book) heard him talking to me. I wonder at his being so
fretted by what was said of him as some of these Papers show that he was:
very unlike his old self, surely. Perhaps Ill Health (which Johnson said
made every one a Scoundrel) had something to do with this. I don't mean
that W. M. T. went this length: but in this one respect he was not so
good as he used to be.

Annie Thackeray in her yearly letter wrote that she had heard from Mrs.
A. T. that the Laureate was still suffering. I judge from your Letter
that he is better. . . . I never heard any of his coadjutor Sullivan's
Music. Is there a Tune, or originally melodious phrase, in any of it?
That is what I always missed in Mendelssohn, except in two or three of
his youthful Pieces; Fingal and Midsummer Night's Dream overtures, and
Meeresstille. Chorley {127} mentions as a great instance of M.'s
candour, that when some of his Worshippers were sneering at Donizetti's
'Figlia,' M. silenced them by saying 'Do you [know] I should like to have
written it myself.' If he meant that he ever could have written it if he
had pleased, he ought to have had his nose tweaked.

I have been reading Sir Walter's Pirate again, and am very glad to find
how much I like it--that is speaking far below the mark--I may say how I
wonder and delight in it. I am rejoiced to find that this is so; and I
am quite su