I have been to see two shew places lately: Boughton in Northamptonshire, a seat of the Duke of Buccleugh's, of the Versailles or Clare Hall style of building, in a very great park planted with the longest avenues I ever saw. But I thought the whole affair gloomy and deserted. There are some fine pictures: and two cartoons said to be by Raffaelle: of which one is the vision of Ezechiel--I could not judge of their genuineness. The other place I have seen is Woburn Abbey--the Duke of Bedford's--a fine place but not much to my taste either. There are very fine pictures there of all kinds--one room hung with brilliant Canalettis--and altogether the pictures are better arranged and hung than in any place I have seen. But these kind of places have not much character in them: an old Squire's gable-ended house is much more English and aristocratic to my mind. I wish you had been with me and Browne at an old seat of Lord Dysart's, Helmingham in Suffolk, the other day. There is a portrait there of the present Lady Dysart in the prime of her beauty, by Sir Joshua. She is now 95. . . . I am reading Pindar now and then: I don't much care about him I must say: though I suppose he is the very best writer in the Poet Laureate style: that is, writing on occasion for so much money. I see great merits doubtless--a concise and simple way of saying great things, etc., but the subjects are not interesting enough to me. I suppose a good poet could have celebrated Dutch Sam {57} as having been descended from King William the Third just as well as Pindar glorifies his boxers with the mythical histories of the AEacidae, Heraclidae, etc. . . . _To Frederic Tennyson_. GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES, [_April_ 10, 1839.] MY DEAR TENNYSON,