Do not be alarmed at another Letter from me this year. It will need no answer: and is only written to tell you that I have not wholly neglected the wish you expressed in your last about the Naseby stone. I was reading, some months ago, your letters about our Naseby exploits in 1842: as also one which you wrote in 1855 (I think) about that Stone, giving me an Inscription for it. And it was not wholly my fault that your wishes were not then fulfilled, though perhaps I was wanting in due energy about the matter. Thus, however, it was; that when you wrote in 1855, we had just sold Naseby to the Trustees of Lord Clifden: and, as there was some hitch in the Business (Lord Carlisle being one of the Trustees), I was told I had better not put in my oar. So the matter dropt. Since then Lord Clifden is dead: and I do not know if the Estate belongs to his Family. But, on receiving your last Letter, I wrote to the Lawyers who had managed for Lord Clifden to know about it: but up to this hour I have had no answer. Thus much I have done. If I get the Lawyer's and Agent's consent, I should be very glad indeed to have the stone cut, and lettered, as you wished. But whether I should pluck up spirit to go myself and set it up on the proper spot, I am not so sure; and I cannot be sure that any one else could do it for me. Those who were with me when I dug up the bones are dead, or gone; and I suppose the Plough has long ago obliterated the traces of sepulture, in these days of improved Agriculture; and perhaps even the Tradition is lost from the Memory of the Generation that has sprung up since I, and the old Parson, and the Scotch Tenant, turned up the ground. You will think me very base to hesitate about such a little feat as a Journey into Northamptonshire for this purpose. But you know that one does not generally grow more active in Travel as one gets older: and I have been a bad Traveller all my life. So I will promise nothing that I am not sure of doing. Only, if you continue to desire this strongly, when next Summer comes, I will resolve upon it if I can. These Naseby Letters of yours--they are all yours I have preserved, because (as in the case of Tennyson and Thackeray) I would not leave anything of private personal history behind me, lest it should fall into some unscrupulous hand. Even these Naseby letters--would you wish them returned to you? Only in case you should desire this, trouble yourself to answer me now. _To W. F. Pollock_. WOODBRIDGE, _Dec._ 24, [1871] MY DEAR POLLOCK,