. . . I will send back the Gainsboro' copy {56a} at once; I think the Original must be one of the happiest of the Painter's; while he had Vandyke in his Eye, with whom he was to go to Heaven. {56b} I will not argue how far he was superior to Reynolds in Colour; but in the Air of Dignity and Gentility (in the better Sense) he was surely inferior; it must be so, from the Difference of Character in the two men. Madame D'Arblay (Miss Burney) relates how one day when she was dining with Sir Joshua at Richmond, she chanced to see him looking at her in a peculiar way; she said to him, 'I know what you are thinking about.' 'Ay,' he said, 'you may come and sit to me now whenever you please.' They had often met; but he at last caught _the_ phase of her which was best; but I don't think it ever went to Canvas. I don't think Gainsboro' could have painted the lovely portrait at the Bishop of Ely's, slight as it was; Sir Joshua was by much the finer Gentleman; indeed Gainsboro' was a Scamp. * * * * * In the summer of 1864 FitzGerald bought a small farmhouse in the outskirts of Woodbridge, which he afterwards converted into Little Grange. _To George Crabbe_. WOODBRIDGE: _July_ 31/64. MY DEAR GEORGE, I returned yesterday from a Ten Days' Cruise to the Sussex Coast: which was pleasant enough. To-morrow I talk of Lowestoft and Yarmouth. . . . Read Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, something of a very different order [from the 'Dean's English'], deeply interesting; pathetic, eloquent, and, I think, sincere: sincere, in not being conscious of all the steps he took in reaching his present Place. _To E. B. Cowell_. MARKET HILL: WOODBRIDGE. _Aug._ 31, [1864]. MY DEAR COWELL, . . . I hope you don't think I have forgotten you. Your visit gave me a sad sort of Pleasure, dashed with the Memory of other Days; I now see so few People, and those all of the common sort, with whom I never talk of our old Subjects; so I get in some measure unfitted for such converse, and am almost saddened with the remembrance of an old contrast when it comes. And there is something besides; a Shadow of Death: but I won't talk of such things: only believe I don't forget you, nor wish to be forgotten by you. Indeed, your kindness touched me.