re that it is not owing to my old prejudice, but to the
intrinsic merit and beauty of the Book itself. With all its faults of
detail, often mere carelessness, what a broad Shakespearian Daylight over
it all, and all with no Effort, and--a lot else that one may be contented
to feel without having to write an Essay about. They won't beat Sir
Walter in a hurry (I mean of course his earlier, Northern, Novels), and
he was such a fine Fellow that I really don't believe any one would wish
to cast him in the Shade. {128}

_To T. Carlyle_.

WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 20, [1871].

DEAR CARLYLE,

Do not be alarmed at another Letter from me this year. It will need no
answer: and is only written to tell you that I have not wholly neglected
the wish you expressed in your last about the Naseby stone. I was
reading, some months ago, your letters about our Naseby exploits in 1842:
as also one which you wrote in 1855 (I think) about that Stone, giving me
an Inscription for it. And it was not wholly my fault that your wishes
were not then fulfilled, though perhaps I was wanting in due energy about
the matter. Thus, however, it was; that when you wrote in 1855, we had
just sold Naseby to the Trustees of Lord Clifden: and, as there was some
hitch in the Business (Lord Carlisle being one of the Trustees), I was
told I had better not put in my oar. So the matter dropt. Since then
Lord Clifden is dead: and I do not know if the Estate belongs to his
Family. But, on receiving your last Letter, I wrote to the Lawyers who
had managed for Lord Clifden to know about it: but up to this hour I have
had no answer. Thus much I have done. If I get the Lawyer's and Agent's
consent, I should be very glad indeed to have the stone cut, and
lettered, as you wished. But whether I should pluck up spirit to go
myself and set it up on the proper spot, I am not so sure; and I cannot
be sure that any one else could do it for me. Those who were with me
when I dug up the bones are dead, or gone; and I suppose the Plough has
long ago obliterated the traces of sepulture, in these days of improved
Agriculture; and perhaps even the Tradition is lost from the Memory of
the Generation that has sprung up since I, and the old Parson, and the
Scotch Tenant, turned up the ground. You will think me very base to
hesitate about such a little feat as a Journey into Northamptonshire for
this purpose. But you know that one does not generally grow more active
in Travel as