. So I
have little to tell you of Friends as of Books. Spedding hammers away at
his Bacon (impudently forestalled by H. Dixon's Book). Carlyle is not so
up to work as of old (I hear). Indeed, he wrote me he was ill last
Summer, and obliged to cut Frederick and be off to Scotland and Idleness:
the Doctors warned him of Congestion of Brain: a warning he scorned. But
what more likely? The last account I had of Alfred Tennyson from Mrs. A.
was a good one. Frederic T. is settled at Jersey. I cannot make up my
mind to go to see any of these good, noble men: I only hope they believe
I do not forget, or cease to regard them.

My chief Amusement in Life is Boating, on River and Sea. The Country
about here is the Cemetery of so many of my oldest Friends: and the petty
race of Squires who have succeeded only use the Earth for an
_Investment_: cut down every old Tree: level every Violet Bank: and make
the old Country of my Youth hideous to me in my Decline. There are fewer
Birds to be heard, as fewer Trees for them to resort to. So I get to the
Water: where Friends are not buried nor Pathways stopt up: but all is, as
the Poets say, as Creation's Dawn beheld. I am happiest going in my
little Boat round the Coast to Aldbro', with some Bottled Porter and some
Bread and Cheese, and some good rough Soul who works the Boat and chews
his Tobacco in peace. An Aldbro' Sailor talking of my Boat said--'She go
like a Wiolin, she do!' What a pretty Conceit, is it not? As the Bow
slides over the Strings in a liquid Tune. Another man was talking
yesterday of a great Storm: 'and, in a moment, all as calm as a Clock.'

By the bye, Forby reasons that our Suffolk third person singular 'It go,
etc.,' is probably right as being the old Icelandic form. Why should the
3rd p. sing. be the only one that varies. And in the auxiliaries _May_,
_Shall_, _Can_, etc., there _is_ no change for the 3rd pers. I incline
to the Suffolk because of its avoiding a hiss.

_To George Crabbe_.

MARKET-HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_June_ 4/61.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Let me know when you come into these Parts, and be sure I shall be glad
to entertain you as well as I can if you come while I am here. Nor am I
likely to be away further than Aldbro', so far as I see. I do meditate
crossing one fine Day to Holland: to see the Hague, Paul Potter, and some
Rembrandt at Rotterdam. This, however, is not to be done in my little
Boat: but in some Trader from Ipswich. I a