hion than what now reigns. And so I now take
heart to send it to you whose Poems and Writings prove that you belong to
another, and, as I think, far better School, whether you care for Crabbe
or not. I dare say you will feel bound to acknowledge the Book; but pray
do so, if at all, by a simple acknowledgment of its receipt; I mean, so
far as I am concerned in it: any word about Crabbe I shall be very glad
to have if you care to write it; but I always maintain it best to say
nothing, unless to find fault, with what is sent to one in this Book
Line. And so to be done by.

_To Lord Houghton_. {285a}

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 10_th_ 1880. {285b}

DEAR LORD HOUGHTON,

I think I have sent you a yearly letter of some sort or other for several
years, so it has come upon me once again. I have nothing to ask of you
except how you are. I should just like to know that, including 'yours'
in you. Just a very few words will suffice, and I daresay you have no
time for more. I have so much time that it is evident I have nothing to
tell, except that I have just entered upon a military career in so far as
having become much interested in the battle of Waterloo, which I just
remember a year after it was fought, when a solemn anniversary took place
in a neighbouring parish where I was born, and the village carpenter came
to my father to borrow a pair of Wellington boots for the lower limbs of
a stuffed effigy of Buonaparte, which was hung on a gibbet, and guns and
pistols were discharged at him, while we and the parson of the parish sat
in a tent where we had beef and plum pudding and loyal toasts. To this
hour I remember the smell of the new-cut hay in the meadow as we went in
our best summer clothes to the ceremony. But now I am trying to
understand whether the Guards or the 52nd Regiment deserved most credit
for _ecraseing_ the Imperial Guard. {286} Here is a fine subject to
address you on in the year 1880! Let it go for nothing; but just tell me
how you are, and believe me, with some feeling of old, if not very close
intimacy,

Yours sincerely,
EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To R. C. Trench_.

WOODBRIDGE. _May_ 18/80.

MY DEAR LORD,

I should have sent a line before now to thank you for your Calderon, had
I not waited for some tidings of Donne from Mowbray, to whom I wrote some
days ago. Not hearing from him, I suppose that he is out holyday-making
somewhere; and therefore I will delay no longer.

You gave me your Calderon wh