. . . I have lost the Boy who read to me so long and so profitably: and now have another; a much better Scholar, but not half so agreeable or amusing a Reader as his Predecessor. We go through Tichborne without missing a Syllable, and, when Tichborne is not long enough, we take to Lothair! which has entertained me well. So far as I know of the matter, his pictures of the manners of English High Life are good: Lothair himself I do not care for, nor for the more romantic parts, Theodora, etc. Altogether the Book is like a pleasant Magic Lantern: when it is over, I shall forget it: and shall want to return to what I do not forget, some of Thackeray's monumental Figures of 'pauvre et triste Humanite,' as old Napoleon called it: Humanity in its Depths, not in its superficial Appearances. _To W. F. Pollock_. THE OLD PLACE, _Feb._ 25/72. . . . Aldis Wright must be right about 'sear' {135a}--French _serre_ he says. What a pity that Spedding has not employed some of the forty years he has lost in washing his Blackamoor in helping an Edition of Shakespeare, though not in the way of these minute archaeologic Questions! I never heard him read a page but he threw some new Light upon it. When you see him pray tell him I do not write to him, because I judge from experience that it is a labour to him to answer, unless it were to do me any service I asked of him except to tell me of himself. My heart leaped when the Boy read me the Attorney General's Quotation from A. T. {135b} _From T. Carlyle_. CHELSEA, 15, _June_, 1872. DEAR FITZGERALD, I am glad that you are astir on the Naseby-Monument question; and that the auspices are so favourable. This welcome 'Agent,' so willing and beneficent, will contrive, I hope, to spare you a good deal of the trouble,--except indeed that of seeing with your own eyes that the Stone is put in its right place, and the number of 'yards rearward' is exactly given. I think the Inscription will do; and as to the shape, etc., of the monument, I have nothing to advise,--except that I think it ought to be of the most perfect _simplicity_, and should {136} go direct to its object and punctually stop there. A small block of Portland stone--(Portland excels all stones in the world for durability and capacity for taking an exact inscription)--block of Portland stone of size to contain the words and allow itself to be sunk firmly in the ground; to me it could have no other good quality whatever; and I should not care if the stone on three sides of it were squared with the hammer merely, and only _polished_ on its front or fourth side where the letters are to be.