rned. In particular, staying at his Cumberland Home along with
Tennyson in the May of 1835. 'Voila bien longtemps de ca!' His Father
and Mother were both alive: he, a wise man, who mounted his Cob after
Breakfast and was at his Farm till Dinner at two; then away again till
Tea: after which he sat reading by a shaded lamp: saying very little, but
always courteous and quite content with any company his Son might bring
to the house, so long as they let him go his way: which indeed he would
have gone whether they let him or no. But he had seen enough of Poets
not to like them or their Trade: Shelley, for a time living among the
Lakes: Coleridge at Southey's (whom perhaps he had a respect for--Southey
I mean); and Wordsworth whom I do not think he valued. He was rather
jealous of 'Jem,' who might have done available service in the world, he
thought, giving himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson
conning over the Morte d'Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which
helped to make up the two volumes of 1842. So I always associate that
Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a
sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And
there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of
Miss La Creevy if you know of such a Person in Nickleby.

At the end of May we went to lodge for a week at Windermere, where
Wordsworth's new volume of Yarrow Revisited reached us. W. was then at
his home: but Tennyson would not go to visit him: and of course I did
not: nor even saw him.

You have, I suppose, the Carlyle Reminiscences: of which I will say
nothing except that much as we outsiders gain by them, I think that, on
the whole, they had better have been kept unpublished, for some while at
least.

_To W. F. Pollock_.

[1881.]

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Thank you for your kind Letter; which I forwarded, with its enclosure, to
Thompson, as you desired.

If Spedding's Letters, or parts of them, would not suit the Public, they
would surely be a very welcome treasure to his Friends. Two or three
pages of Biography would be enough to introduce them to those who knew
him less long and less intimately than ourselves: and all who read would
be the better, and the happier, for reading them.

I am rather surprised to find how much I dwell upon the thought of him,
considering that I had not refreshed my Memory with the sight or sound of
him for more tha