Well, however, I had better say that I have been for the last four months going about in my little Ship as in former years, and now am about to lay up her, and myself, for the Winter. The only Friend I hear from is Donne, who volunteers a Letter unprovoked sometimes. Old Spedding gives an unwilling Reply about thrice in two years. You speak when spoken to; so does Thompson, in general: I shall soon ask of him what he has been doing this Summer. I have been reading in my Boat--Virgil, Juvenal, and Wesley's Journal. Do you know the last? one of the most interesting Books, I think, in the Language. It is curious to think of his Diary extending over nearly the same time as Walpole's Letters, which, you know, are a sort of Diary. What two different Lives, Pursuits, and Topics! The other day I was sitting in a Garden at Lowestoft in which Wesley had preached his first Sermon there: the Wall he set his Back against yet standing. About 1790 {292a} Crabbe, the Poet, went to hear him; he was helped into the Pulpit by two Deacons, and quoted-- 'By the Women oft I'm told, Poor Anacreon, thou grow'st old, etc.' {292b} So I have heard _my_ George Crabbe tell: who has told it also in his very capital Memoir of his Father. {292c} Sheet full. Kind Regards to Madame and Young Folks. Ever yours, E. F. G. _To T. Carlyle_. RECTORY, BREDFIELD, WOODBRIDGE. DEAR CARLYLE, I should sometimes write to you if I had anything worth telling, or worth putting you to the trouble of answering me. About twice in a year however I do not mind asking you one thing which is easily answered, how you and Mrs. Carlyle are? And yet perhaps it is not so easy for you to tell me so much about yourself: for your 'well-being' comprises a good deal! That you are not carried off by the Cholera I take for granted: since else I should have seen in the papers some controversy with Doctor Wordsworth as to whether you were to be buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of Wilberforce perhaps! Besides, a short note from Thackeray a few weeks ago told me you had been to see him. I conclude also from this that you have not been a summer excursion of any distance.