pe's Barchester Towers, etc.: not perfect, like Miss Austen: but
then so much wider Scope: and perfect enough to make me feel I know the
People though caricatured or carelessly drawn. I doubt if you can read
my writing here: or whether it will be worth your Pains to do so. If you
can, or can not, one Day write me a Line, which I will read. I suppose
when the Fields and Hedges begin to grow green I shall move a little
further inland to be among them.

_To Mrs. Charles Allen_.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_June_ 2/60.

DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

Your kind Note has reacht me here after a Fortnight's abode at my old
Lodgings in London. In London I have not been for more than a year,
unless passing through it in September, and have no thought of going up
at present. I don't think you were there last Spring, were you? Or
perhaps I was gone before you arrived, as I generally used to get off as
soon as it began to fill, and the Country to become amiable. Here at
last we have the 'May' coming out: there it is on some Thorns before my
Windows, and the Tower of Woodbridge Church beyond: and beyond that some
low Hills that stretch with Furze and Broom to the Seaside, about ten
miles off.

I am of course glad of so good a Report of John Allen. I have long been
thinking of writing to him: among other things to give his Wife a Drawing
Laurence made of him for me some four and twenty years ago: in full
Canonicals--very serious--I think a capital Likeness on the whole, and
one that I take pleasure to look at. But I think his Wife and Children
have more title to it: and one never can tell what will become of one's
Things when one's dead. This same Drawing is now in London (I hope: for,
if not, it's lost) and you should see it if you had a mind. For you
don't seem to find your way to Frees any more than I do: I should go if
there weren't a large Family. Mrs. John is always very kind to me. I do
think it is very kind of you too to remember and write to me: at any rate
I do answer Letters, which many better Men don't.

Please to remember me to your Husband: and believe me unforgetful of the
Good old Days, and of you, and yours,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

FARLINGAY: WOODBRIDGE,
_Septr._ 9/60.

MY DEAR MRS. ALLEN,

It is very kind of you to write to me. Ah! how I can fancy the
Stillness, and the Colour, of your pretty Tenby!--now eight and twenty
years since seen! But I can't summon Resolution to go to it: and daily
get worse and wo