' at that also: the Singing, as you know, was inferior: but the
Music itself! Between the Acts a Man sang a song of Verdi's: which was a
strange Contrast, to be sure: one of Verdi's heavy Airs, however: for he
has a true Genius of his own, though not Mozart's. Well: I did not like
even Mozart's two Bravuras for the Ladies: a bad Despina for one: but the
rest was fit for--Raffaelle, whose Christ in the Garden I had been
looking at a little before. I had thought Titian's Cornaro, and a Man in
Black, by a Column, worth nearly all the rest of the Gallery till I saw
the Raffaelle: and I couldn't let that go with the others. All Lord
Radnor's Pictures were new to me, and nearly all very fine. The Vandykes
delightful: Rubens' Daniel, though all by his own hand, not half so good
as a Return from Hunting, which perhaps was not: the Sir Joshuas not
first rate, I think, except a small life Figure of a Sir W. Molesworth in
Uniform: the Gainsboro's scratchy and superficial, _I_ thought: the
Romneys better, _I_ thought. Two fine Cromes: Ditto Turners: and--I will
make an End of my Catalogue Raisonnee. . . .

I suppose you never read Beranger's Letters: there are four thick Volumes
of these, of which I have as yet only seen the Second and Third: and they
are well worth reading. They make one love Beranger: partly because (odd
enough) he is so little of a Frenchman in Character, French as his Works
are. He hated Paris, Plays, Novels, Journals, Critics, etc., hated being
monstered himself as a Great Man, as he proved by flying from it; seems
to me to take a just measure of himself and others, and to be moderate in
his Political as well as Literary Opinions.

I am hoping for Forster's second volume of Dickens in Mudie's forthcoming
Box. Meanwhile, my Boy (whom I momently expect) reads me Trollope's 'He
knew he was right,' the opening of which I think very fine: but which
seems to be trailing off into 'longueur' as I fancy Trollope is apt to
do. But he 'has a world of his own,' as Tennyson said of Crabbe.

_March_ 30/73.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . You have never told me how you thought him [Spedding] looking,
etc., though you told me that your Boy Maurice went to sit with him. It
really reminds me of some happy Athenian lad who was privileged to be
with Socrates. Some Plato should put down the Conversation.

I have just finished the second volume of Forster's Dickens: and still
have no reason not to rejoice in the Man Dicke