I went to see Sophocles' tragedy of Antigone done into English two nights ago. And yesterday I dined with my dear old John Allen who remains whole and intact of the world in the heart of London. He dined some while ago at Lambeth, and the Lady next him asked the Archbishop if he read Punch. Allen thought this was a misplaced question: but I think the Archbishop ought to see Punch: though not to read it regularly perhaps. I then asked Allen about the Vestiges--he had heard of it--laughed at the idea of its being atheistical. 'No enquiry,' said he, 'can be atheistical.' I doubt if the Archbishop of Canterbury could say that. What do you think of Exeter? Isn't he a pretty lad? _To W. B. Donne_. BOULGE, _Jan_. 29/45. MY DEAR DONNE, . . . A. T. has near a volume of poems--elegiac--in memory of Arthur Hallam. Don't you think the world wants other notes than elegiac now? Lycidas is the utmost length an elegiac should reach. But Spedding praises: and I suppose the elegiacs will see daylight, public daylight, one day. Carlyle goes on growling with his Cromwell: whom he finds more and more faultless every day. So that _his_ paragon also will one day see the light also, an elegiac of a different kind from Tennyson's; as far apart indeed as Cromwell and Hallam. Barton comes and sups with me to-morrow, and George Crabbe, son of the poet, a capital fellow. _To F. Tennyson_. BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _Feby_. 6, 1845. MY DEAR FREDERIC, . . . You like to hear of men and manners. Have I not been to London for a whole fortnight, seen Alfred, Spedding, all the lawyers and all the painters, gone to Panoramas of Naples by Volcano-light (Vesuvius in a blaze illuminating the whole bay, which Morton says is not a bit better than Plymouth Sound, if you could put a furnace in the belly of Mount Edgecumbe)--gone to see the Antigone of Messrs. Sophocles and Mendelssohn at Covent Garden--gone to see the Infant Thalia--now as little of an Infant as a Thalia--at the Adelaide Gallery. So! you see things go on as when you were with us. Only the Thalia has waxed in stature: and perhaps in wisdom also: but that is not in her favour. The Antigone is, as you are aware, a neatly constructed drama, on the French model; the music very fine, _I_ thought--but you would turn up your nose at it, I dare say. It was horribly ill sung, by a chorus in shabby togas, who looked much more like dirty bakers than Theban (were they?) respectable old gentlemen. Mr. Vandenhoff sat on a marble camp-stool in the middle, and looked like one of Flaxman's Homeric Kings--very well. And Miss Vandenhoff did Antigone. I forget the name of the lady who did Ismene; {189} perhaps you would have thought her very handsome: but I did not, nor was she considered at all remarkable, as far as I could make out. I saw no pantomimes: and all the other theatres were filled with Balfe, whom perhaps you admire very much. So I won't say anything about him