Yesterdays with Authors

n the small one of Barry Cornwall, made purposely for me in

d in 1869. I found him then quite feeble, but full of his old kindness and geniality. His speech was somewhat difficult to follow, for he had been slightly paralyzed not long before; but after listening to him for half an hour, it was easy to understand nearly every word he uttered. He spoke with warm feeling of Longfellow, who had been in London during that season, and had called to see his venerable friend befor

oken by those who have known him of the author of "Marcian Colonna," "Mirandola," "The Broken Heart," and those charming lyrics which rank the poet among the first of his class. His songs will be sung so long as music wedded to beautiful poetry is a requisition anywhere. His verses have gone into the Book of Fame, and such pieces as "Touch us gently, Time," "Send down thy winged Angel, God," "King Death," "The Sea," and "Belshazzar is King," will long keep his memory green. Who that ever came habitually into his presence can forget the tones of his voice, the tenderness in his gray retrospective eyes, or the touch of his sympathetic hand laid on the shoulder of a friend! The elements were indeed so kind

tober,

in it all the courtesy of genius, without any of that chance asperity so common in some literary circles. The shyness of a scholar brooded continually over him and made him reticent, but he was never silent from ill-humor. His was that true modesty so excellent in ability, and so rare in celebrities petted for a long time in society. His was also that happy alche

antic voyage. "I suppose," said he, "knowing your infirmity, you found it hard work to stand on your immaterial legs, as Hood used to call Lamb's quivering limbs." Sauntering out into the street, he went on in a quaintly humorous way to imagine what a rough voyage must be to a real sufferer, and thus walking gayly along, we came into Leadenhall Street. There he pointed out the office where his old friend and fellow-magazinist, "Elia," spent so many years of hard work from ten until four o'clock of every day. Being in a mood for reminiscence, he described the Wednesday evenings he used to spend with "Charles and Mary" and their friends around the old "mahogany-tree" in Russell Street. I remember he tried to give me an idea of how Lamb looked and dressed, and how he stood bending forward to welcome his guests as they arrived in his humble lodgings. Procter thought nothing unimportant that might serve in any way to illustrate character, and so he seemed to wish that I might get an exact idea of the charming person both of us prized so ardently and he had known so intimately. Speakin

Ancient Mariner" always had an excuse for any bad habit to which he was himself addicted, and he told Procter one day that perhaps snuff was the final cause of the human nose. In connection with Coleridge we had much reminiscence of such interesting persons as the Novellos, Martin Burney, Talfourd, and Crabb Robinson, and a store of anecdotes in which Haydon, Manning, Dyer, and Godwin figured at full length. In course of conversation I asked my companion i

its record book where together we read this entry: "October 9, 1782, Charles

library, sitting at his books, with the windows wide open, letting in the spring odors. Quoting, as I entered, some lines from Wordsworth embalming May mornings, he began to talk of the older poets who had worshipped nature with the ardor of lovers, and his eyes lighted up with p

one of Lamb's letters t

p of a note in 'Elia's' handwriting. Such things are too pr

papers. "Ah," said he, as he turned over the golden leaves, "here is something you will like to handle." I unfolded the sheet, and lo! it was in Keats's handwriting, the sonnet on

avelled in the

ly states and

estern islan

in fealty to

de expanse ha

ed Homer ruled

er breathe it

apman speak out

ke some watche

lanet swims

Cortez when

the Pacific-a

h other with

on a peak

sent to share with me the boon of such an interview. Presently my hospitable friend, still rummaging among the past, drew out a letter, which was the one, he said, he had been looking after. "Cram it into your pocket," he cried, "for I hear -- coming down stairs, and perhaps she won't let you carry it off!" The letter is addressed to B.W. Procter, Esq., 10 Lincoln's Inn, New Square. I give the entire epis

y 19,

property, which it seems she held under Covert Baron, unknown to my Brother, to the heirs of the body of Elizabeth Dowden, her married daughter by her first husband, in fee simple, recoverable by fine-invested property, mind, for there is the difficulty-subject to leet and quit rent-in short, worded in the most guarded terms, to shut out the property from Isaac Dowden the husband. Intelligence has just come of the death of this person in India, where he made a will, entailing this property (which seem'd entangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should not be born of his wife; for it seems by the Law in India natural children can recover. They have put the cause into Exchequer Process here, removed by Certiorari from the Native Co

lace there are some wo

not been in my new house 24 hours, when the Daughter of the next house came in with a friend's Album to beg a contribution, and the following day intimated she had one of her own. Two more have sprung up since. If I take the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts of the earth, there will Albums be. New Holland has Albums. But the age is to be complied with. M.B. will tell you the sort of girl I request the ten lines for. Somewhat of a pensive cast what you admire. The lines may come before the Law question, as that cannot be determined before Hilary Term, and I wish your deliberate judgment on that. The other may be flimsy and superficial. And if y

. L

cillings of memory. When Lamb and his sister, tired of housekeeping, went into lodging and boarding with T-- W--, their sometime next-door neighbor,-who, Lamb said, had one joke and forty pounds a year, upon which he retired in a green old age,-Procter still kept up his friendly visits to his old associate. And after the brother and sister moved

f commentary, taking exactly the other side. Carlyle was full of horse-play over the character of George Washington, whom he never vouchsafed to call anything but George. He said our first President was a good surveyor, and knew how to measure timber, and that was about all. Procter kept whispering to m

y almost always selected inferior women. Procter, sitting next to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and, with a look expressive of ludicrous pity and contempt for the idiotic speaker, whispered,

s curious fact: although he is the author of one of th

he sea, the

r dared to cross the Channel even, and so had never seen Paris. He said, like many others, he delighted to gaze upon the waters

e sea! I'm

e I would

gnature to it. We had, I remember, a great deal of fun over the poetical lies, as he called them, which bards in all ages had perpetrated in their

erward gave me in his own handwriting, and

. I remember to have been startled at hearing the man who in his day had known so many poets declare that Browning was the peer of any one who had written in this century, and that, on the

other dandies as naturally as if he had been for years a London man about town. He was full of fresh talk concerning his own country, and we all admired his cleverness in compassing so aptly all the little newnesses of the situation. He was ready on all occasions, a little too ready, some of the habitués of the salon thought, and they could not understand his cool and quiet-at-home manners. H

y other lady in England, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be prompted by a public verdict. As the poet described her to me as she moved through her exquisite apartments, surrounded by all the luxuries that

a light en

Her b

order that

rned by her

usic, the brigh

rious by h

not endure a long face under his roof, and declined to see the dark side of anything. He wrote verses almost like a poet, but no one surpassed him in genuine admiration for whatever was excellent in others. No happiness was so great to him as the conferring of happiness on others, an

d in 1856 she dedicates "Aurora Leigh

estedness than Romney's.... I venture to leave in your hands this book, the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered; that as, through my various efforts in literature and steps in life, you

.B

ore amiable, attractive qualities. A kind friend, a good master, a generous and judicious dispenser of his wealth, honorable, sweet-tempered, and serene, and genial as a summer's day. It is true that he has left me a solid mark of his friendship. I did not expect anything; but if to like a man sincerely deserved such a mark of his regard, I deserved it. I doubt if he has left one person who really liked him more than I did. Yes, one-I think one-a woman.... I get old and weak and stupid. That pleasant journey to Niagara, that dip into your Indian summer, all such thoughts are over. I shall never see Italy; I shall never see Paris. My future is before me,-a very limited landscape, with scarcely one o

first met Walter Savage Landor, whose writings are full of verbal legacies to posterity. As I entered the room with Procter, Landor was in the midst of an eloquent harangue on the high art of portraiture. Procter had been lately sitting to a daguerreotypist for a picture, and Mrs. Jameson, who was very fond of the poet, had arranged the camera for that occasion. Landor was holding the picture in his hand, declaring that it had never been surpassed as a specimen of that particular art. The grand-looking author of "Pericles and Aspasia" was standing in the middle of the room when we entered

irl; that the consul's voice was deep and melodious, but untruthful in tone. While we were eating breakfast he went on to describe his Italian travels in early youth, telling us that he once saw Shelley and Byron meet in the doo

s, and his friends were never sure of his equanimity. I was present once when a blundering friend trod unwittingly on his favorite prejudice, and Landor went off instanter like a blaspheming torpedo. There were

friend Landor sit for the portrait of Lawrence Boythorn. The very laugh that made the whole house vibrate, the roundness and fulness of voice, the fury of superlatives, are all given in Dickens's best manner, and no one who has ever seen Landor for half an hour could possibly mistake Boythorn for anybody else. Talking the matter over once with Dickens, he said, "Landor always took that presentation of himself in hearty good-humor, and seemed rather proud of the picture." This is Dickens's portrait: "He was not only a very handsome old gentleman, upright and stalwart, with a massive gray head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have beco

uriosity Shop." It seems that the first idea of Little Nell occurred to Dickens when he was on a birthday visit to Landor, then living in Bath. The old man was residing in lodgings in St. James Square, in that city, and ever after connected Little Nell with that particular spot. No character in prose fiction was a greater fa

interest. I heard the poet one evening describe the player most graphically as he appeared in Sir Giles Overreach in 1816 at Drury Lane, when he produced such an effect on Lord Byron, who sat that night in a stage-box with Tom Moore. His lordship was so overcome by Kean's magnificent acting that he fe

ege to be received by the hostess herself, for Mrs. Procter was not only sure to be the most brilliant person among her guests, but she practised habitually that exquisite cou

e of poems. "I have seen many a handsome man in my time," said the old lady one day to us at dinner, "but never such a pair of eyes as young Robbie Burns kept flashing from under his beautiful brow." Mrs. Montague was much inter

the poet drew my attention to her as she sat reading in a corner of the library. Looking at the young maiden, intent on her book, I rem

t! My sweet, bel

idings bring'st

dost shine when

sing! Rose whic

lemish,-pure

inted! O my Flo

han to bees ar

seamen life-

sand welcomes!

loosening now i

upward; and the b

a youth of en

, is it so?

n divine Ely

sit Wordsworth made to his house one day, and how gentle the old man's aspect was when he looked at the children. "He took the hand of my dear Adelaide in his," said Procter, "and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which helped, perhaps, with other things, to incline her to poetry." When a little child "the golden-tressed Adelaide," as the poet calls her in one of his songs,

us gent

ide adown

s we some

a quie

voyager

fe, and chi

ost, an a

azure o

us gent

roud nor so

tion, ou

simple

voyager

s dim unso

nly some

ently, gen

Miss Mary Berwick; how he came to think that his unknown correspondent must be a governess; how, as time went on, he learned to value his new contributor for her self-reliance and punctuality,-qualities upon which Dickens always placed a high value; how at last, going to dine one day with his old friends the Procters, he launched enthusiastically out in praise of Mary Berwick (the writer herself, Adelaide Procter, sitting at th

before she died was spent in helping others, by correspondence and personal contact, to submit to the sorrows God had cast upon them. She believed, with Milton, that it is miserable enough to be blind, but still more miserable not to be able to bear blindness. Her own earlier life had been darkened by griefs, and she knew from a deep experience what it was to enter the cloud and stand waiting and hoping in the shadows. In her instructive and delightful society I spent many an hour twenty years ago in the hou

ossible, to listen to the "true daughter of her race." The rest of her family for years had been, as it were, "nourished on Shakespeare," and achieved greatness in that high walk of genius; but now came one who could interpret Mozart, Bellini, and Mercadante, one who could equal what Pasta and Malibran and Persiani and Grisi had taught the world to understand and worship. "Ah!" said a f

e day, "and you must go with us." I went, and our hostess was the once m

and hurries a

t warble its d

bent forward to watch every motion of her idol, looking applause at every noble passage. Another lady, whom I did not know, was tremulous with excitement, and I could well imagine what might have taken place when the "impassioned chantress" sang and enacted Semiramide as I have heard it described. Every one present was inspired by her fine mien, as well as by her transcendent voice. Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Cherubini,-how she flung herself that night, with all her gifts, into their highest compositions! As she rose and was walking away from the piano, after singing an air from the "Medea" with a pathos that no musically uneducated pen like mine can or ought to attempt a description of, some one intercepted her and whispered a request. Again she turned, and walked toward the instrument like

daughters o

e uttered

roaring in tu

ging only to those consummate artists who have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. As we

ywhere in society in those days. In 1821 the proprietors began to give dinners in Waterloo Place once a month to their contributors, who, after the cloth was removed, were expected to talk over the prospects of the magazine, and lay out the contents for next month. Procter described to me the authors of his generation as they sat round the old "mahogany-tree" of that period. "Very social and expansive hours they passed in that pleasant room half a century ago. Thither came stalwart Allan Cunningham, with his Scotch face shining with good-nature; Charles Lamb, 'a Diogenes with the heart of

ow dislimned into space, but he was, according to all his thoughtful contemporaries, a "son of thunder," a "giant force of activity." Procter fully indors

and no one dreamed that this gay and mock-smiling London cavalier was about to begin a career so foul and monstrous that the annals of crime for centuries have no blacker pages inscribed on them. To secure the means of luxurious living without labor, and to pamper his dandy tastes, this lounging, lazy littérateur resolved to become a murderer on a large scale, and accompany his cruel poisonings with forgeries whenever they were most convenient. His custom for years was to effect policies of insurance on the lives of his relations, and then at the proper time administer strychnine to his victims. The heart sickens at the recital of his brutal crimes. On the life of a beautiful young girl named Abercrombie this fiendish wretch effected an insurance at various offices for ￡18,000 before he sent her to her account with the rest of his poisoned too-confiding relatives. So many heavily insured ladies dying in violent convulsions drew attention to the gentleman who always called to collect the money. But why this consummate criminal was not brought to justice and hung, my Lord Abinger never satisfactorily divulged. At last this polished Sybarite, who boasted that he always drank the richest Montepulciano, who could not sit long in a room that was not garlanded with flowers, who said he felt lonely in an apartment without a fine cast of the Venus de' Medici in i

e summer of 1859 when Procter had a party of friends at dinner to meet Hawthorne, who was then on a brief visit to London. Among the guests were the Countess of --, Kin

ich was exquisitely decorated with flowers, the author of "Rimini" recalled to Procter's recollection other memorable tables where they used to meet in vanished days with Lamb, Coleridge, and others of their set long since passed away. As they talked on in rather low tones, I saw the two old poets take hands more than once

r of the enchant

at she walked on the stage like an empress, "and when she sang," said he, "I held my breath." Leigh Hunt, in one of his letters

alking of criticism, he said he did not believe in spiteful imps, but in kindly elves who would "nod to him and do him courtesies." He laughed at Bishop Berkeley's attempt to destroy the world in one octavo volume. His doctrine to mankind always was, "Enlarge your tastes, that you may enlarge your hearts." He believ

by degrees, sh

dark and e

d rush at a

o black eyes fo

htful essay on "The Tranquillity of the Soul." He had such reverence for the wisdom folded up on his library shelves, he declared that the very perusal of the backs of his books was "a discipline of humanity." Whenever and wherever I met this charming person, I learned a lesson of gentleness and patience; for, steeped to the lips in poverty as he was, he was ever the most cheerful, the most genial companion and friend. He never left his good-nature outside the family circle, as a Mussulman l

, and leave the

rite child of the genii who carried an amulet in his bosom by which all the gold and jewels of the Sultan's halls were no sooner beheld than they became his own. If he sat down companionless to a solitary chop, his imagination transformed it straightway into a fine shoulder of mutton. When he looked out

e life and writings of Ben Jonson to the great dramatist's works printed by Moxon in 1838. I happen to be the lucky owner of a copy of this edition that once belonged to Leigh Hunt, who has enriched it and perfumed the pages, as it were, by his annotations. The memoir abounds in felicities of expression, and

arning, the seq

sweet sereni

r great ones have sat there and held converse on divers matters with the banker-poet. For more than half a century the wits and the wise men honored that unpretending mansion with their presence. On my way thither for the first time my companions related anecdote after anecdote of the "ancient bard," as they called our host, telling me also how all his

able, and his good man Edmund standing behind his chair. As we entered the room, and I saw

e seemed that eve

d to the eloquence of Fox and Sheridan; who had heard Edmund Burke raise his voice till the old arches of Irish oak resounded, and impeach Warren Hastings, "in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, as the common enemy and oppressor of all." It thrilled me to hear Rogers say, "As I walked up Parliament Street with Mrs. Siddons, after hearing Sheridan's great speech, we both agreed that never before could human lips have uttered more eloquent words." That morning Rogers described to us the appearance of Grattan as he first saw and heard him when he made his first speech in Parliament. "Some of us were inclined to laugh," said he, "at the orator's Irish brogue when he began his speech that day, but after he had been on h

O Garrick, a

found who can tr

ch can sometimes be put into an epigram!" he said to Procter, and asked him if he remembered the

arisen of lat

e devil, his c

contend that th

r that he's bl

cided quite rig

vinced that the

inion of the critics. "Yes," said he, "perfectly. I saw both those wonderful actors, and fully agreed at the time with the admirable epigram that ran like wildfire into every nook and c

ve chosen di

their diff

ey give lou

ick onl

y, every i

rry dot

's quite an

y inch Ki

s an evidence of his inaccuracy, Rogers related how the noble bard had once quoted to him some lines on Venice as Southey's, "which he wan

glorious city

h great feeling, "Children would run away from that face, and they never ran away from me!" Notwithstanding all he had to say against the portrait, I thought it a wonderful likeness, and a painting of great value. Moxon, the publisher, who was present, asked for a certain portfolio of engraved heads which had been made from time to time of Rogers, and this was brought and opened for our examination of its contents. Rogers insisted upon looking over the portraits, and he amused us by his cutting comments on each one as it came out of the portfolio. "This," said he, holding one up, "is the head of a cunning fellow, and this the face of a debauched clergyman, and this the visage of a shameless drunkard!" After a comic discussion of the pictures of himself, which went on for half an hour, he

f being in Paris on a pleasure-tour with Daniel Webster, and he grew eloquent over the great American orator's genius. He also referred wi

arth was ever

never utter

s something in that poem which breaks me down, and I must never t

the warmest admiration, and thought the author of "Voices of the Nigh

reality. In his narrations the eloquent men, the fine ladies, he had seen there assembled again around their noble host and hostess, and one listened in the pleasant breakfast-room in St. James Plac

among his kindred, all now dead save one, his sister, who also lived to a great age. His head was very fine, and I never could quite understand the satirical sayings about his personal appearance which have crept into

t still striking

ll about Dr. Johnson; who had sat hours with Mrs. Piozzi; who read the "Vicar of Wakefield" the day it was published; who had heard Haydn, the composer, playing at a concert, "dressed out with a sword"; who had listened to Talleyrand's best sayings from his own lips; who had seen John Wesley lying dead in his coffin, "an old man, with the countenance of a little child"; who had been with Beckford at Fonthill; who had seen Porson slink back into the dining-room after the company had left it and drain what was left in the wineglasses; who had crossed the Apennines with Byron; who had seen Beau Nash in the height of his career dancing minuets at Bath; who had known Lady Hamilton in her days of beauty, and seen her often with Lord Nelson; who was in Fox's room when that great man lay dying; and who could describe Pitt from personal observation, speaking always as if his mouth was "full of worsted." It was unreal as a dream to sit there in St. James Place and hear that old man talk by the hour of what one had been reading about all one's life. One thing, I must confess

I went down to Bolt Court in 1782 with the intention of making Dr. Johnson's acquaintance. I raised the knocker tremblingly, and hearing the shuffling footsteps as of an old man in the entry, my heart failed me, and I put down the knocker softly again, and crept back into Fleet

often came of a morning to sing their best arias to him when he became too old to attend the opera; a

e to hate all those intemperate landscapes and lurid compositions which abound in the shambles of modern art. In the company of Leslie I saw my first Titians and Vandycks, and felt, as Northcote says, on my good behavior in the presence of portraits so lifelike and inspiring. It was Leslie who inoculated me with a love of Gainsborough, before whose perfect pictures a specta

l-piece, like tiles, were several of Turner's original oil and water-color drawings, which that supreme artist had designed to illustrate Rogers's "Poems" and "Italy." Long before Ruskin made those

club, near Gore House, looking out on Piccadilly. The count seemed a little past his prime, but was still the hand

one, and his whole manner announced a determination to assert that nobody need prompt him. His voice rang loud and clear, up stairs and down, everywhere throughout his premises. When he walked over the uncarpeted floor, you heard him walk, and he meant you sho

n the poet sent his old friend a present of Shakespeare's Works. A more exquisite

ow a man who

eat thoughts of

whom I have c

rs and upwards

erian pastur

which springs f

the little flo

who for their

hakespeare to s

in the name o

riendship, neve

ance thou wil

ill on Spirits o

esting on that

eam of Life is

rce carried him along wherever he chose to go, and when he played "Kitely," his ability must have been strikingly apparent. After his marriage, and when he removed from Lincoln's Inn to his fine residence at "Palace-Gate House," he gave frequent readings, evincing remarkable natural and acquired talents. For Dickens he had a love amounting to jealousy. He never quite relished anybody else whom the great novelist had a fondness for, and I have heard droll stories touching this weakness. For Professor Felton he had unbounded regard, which had grown up by correspondence and through report from Dickens. He had never met Felton, and when the professor arrived in London, Dickens, with his love of fun, arranged a bit of cajolery, which was never quite forgotten, though wholly forgiven. Knowing how highly Forster esteemed Felton, through his writings and his letters, Dickens resolved t

f his admirable qualities that the love of so many of England's best and greatest was secured to him by so lasting a tenure. To have the friendship of Landor, Dickens, a

m to be their biographer, and all his works in that department have a s

the Cross," were at one period both engaged as pupils in their profession under the guidance of Mr. Procter. He frequently spoke with pride of his two law students, and when Warburton perished at sea, his grief for his brilliant friend was deep a

never hear any disparagement of his friend's ability and keenness. I recall his earnest but restrained indignation one day, when some person compared Hazlitt with a diffusive modern writer of notes on the theatre, and I remember with what contempt, in his sweet forgivable way, the old man spoke of much that passes nowadays for criticism. He said Hazlitt was exactly the opposite of Lord Chesterfield, who advised his son, if he could not get at a thing in a straight line, to try the serpentine one. There were no crooked pathways

style and spirit, I induced him, after much persuasion, to collect and publish in America his prose works. The result was a couple of volumes, which were brought

of the eart

istorted metaphor or tawdry rhetoric in Barry's thoughtful pages, but will find a calm philosophy and a beautiful faith, very precious and profitable in these days of doubt and insecurity of intellect. There is a respite and a sympathy in this fine spirit, and so I commend him heartily in times so full of turmoil and suspicion as these. One of the stories in the

s toiled high up the steep hill of knowledge, that he should be cast like Sisyphus, downward in a moment; that he who has worn the day and wasted the night in gathering the gold of science should be, with all his wealth of learning, all his accumulations, made bankrupt at once. What becomes of all the riches of the soul, the piles and pyramids of precious thoughts which men heap together?

I turned my eyes to its moaning mother, and sighed out my few words of comfort. But I am a beggar in grief. I can feel and sigh and look kindly, I think; but I have nothing to give. My tongue deserts me. I know the inutility

old friends in England thought no literary man of his time had a better epistolary style. His neat elegant chirography on the back of a letter was always a delightful foretaste of

early letters

ke a good steam-engine than to manufacture a bad poem. 'Building the lofty rhyme' is a good thing, but our present buildings are of a low order, an

her he

ortune is that persons who write anonymously don't put forth their strength, in general. I was a magazine writer for no less than a dozen years, and I fel

sonal for type. A few extracts, however, I cannot resist copying. Some of his epistles are enriched with a song or a sonnet, then just written, and the

1851, h

en introduced only to a few. I found Mr. Norton, who has returned to you, a

enyon and (so far as regards a desire to judge fairly) myself, I think there wou

theless it (I mean the palace) is a remarkable achievement, after all; and I speak sincerely when I say, 'All honor and glory to Paxton!' If the strings of my

. If it continue much longer, I shall be held in solution for the remainder of my days, and shall be remarkable as 'Oxygen, t

PROC

's remarkable novel, forming part

observation of nature, and also of character among a certain class of persons. But it is almost too minute, and for me decidedly too theological. You see what irreligious people

, November 25, 1852," in which he refers to h

u Americans are a rapid race. When I thought you were in Scotland, lo, you had touched the soil of Boston; and when I thought you were unpacking my poor MS., tumbling it out of your gre

will do me the kindness to send a copy each to Mr. Charles Sumner, Mr. Hillard, Mr. Norton: but no-my wife requests to be the donor to Mr. Norton, so you must, if you please, write hi

e the mail, I believe, starts to-morrow. The unwilling Minerva is at my elbow, and I feel that every sentence I write, were it pounded ten ti

re apprehensive of an invasion,-not an impossible event; some writing odes to the Duke of Wellington; and I am putting my good friend to sleep with the flattest prose that ever dropped from an English pen.

EEPY

ing me t

, in some sweet s

poet on som

ilence in his

s the ri

ows between soft

rmurs, and the

usic, 'tween th

O divin

some wizard's

e, by soothing

hores, into the

London. It will appear in an Annual edited

ay Mo

e English Apollo hides his head-you can scarcely see him on the 'misty

rd I suppose (but I don't know) to Boston and Philadelphia. Have you seen Esmond? There are parts of it charmingly written.

ey will try to like them; but the papers have been written so long, and all, or almost a

which I have written a chapter or two, I should reckon more surely on success; bu

letter apply to the prin

h you. My wife desires to

urs, very

PROC

nd Mr. Willis a copy of the

y, 1853, h

in binding. Neither too gay to be gaudy, nor too grave, so as to affect the theological, it hits that happy medium which agrees with the tastes of most people and disgusts none. We should flatter ourselves that it is intended to represent th

closed in your letter, due thanks. These will

copies more, to be sent at your convenience, of course. Let me hear from you at the same time. You can give m

ping both. I am not so sure of the money, however, for he has a liberal hand. I should have liked to have been at one of the dinners you

dmirably written. Not having any great sympathy with a custom-house,-nor, indeed, with Salem, except that it s

Miss Bronte. The book does not give one the most pleasing notion of the authoress, perhaps, but it is very clever, graphic, vigorous.

r Willis. Our critics here

pincers to our undefended little island, and is tyrannizing in every corner and over every part of every person. Nothing is too great for him, nothing too mean. He

WITH A

winter blo

arth is i

ain or s

very drea

e'er a sp

heavens m

urse is shr

end is lost

ld doth pou

an the fro

till a spo

heavens m

never me

little spo

ighteneth

night to

en the spo

heavens m

that your English dreams may continue bright, and that when they begin to fade you will come

say that I am v

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ts by his open window in London, on a morning of s

nt [?] (so useful for certain invalids) is seen here and there; primroses are peeping out in your neighborhood, and you are looking for cowslips to come. I say

wealth, prese

slip and the p

to forward to your humble correspondent those copies of B-- C--'s prose works which you promised I know

as thought on divers and sundry matters; but he is evidently so thoroughly well pleased with the Sieur 'Thomas De Quincey' that his self-sufficiency spoils even his best works. Then some of his facts are, I hear, quasi facts only, not unfrequently. He has his moments when he sleeps, and becomes oblivious of all

works for the next 5th of November, when there will be a great bonfire. It is deuced lucky that my immortal (ah! I am De Quinceying)-I mean my h

ut I hear that it lasts for three years only. This is melancholy. I hope, however, that he will 'realize' (as you trans-atlantics say) as much a

all probably meet her somewhere o

ten it, but my conscience is a serpent that gives me a bite or a sting every now and then when I think of him. The first time I am in fit condition (I mean in point

something of your slaves, whom he represents as leading a very easy life, and as being fat, cheerful, and happy. Nevertheless, I (for one) would rather be a free man,

l, and to remind you that for your ten lines of writing I have sent you back a hundred.

very s

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spirit of Americans, and in his letters he makes frequen

the world. I myself should not care much to be confined to a circle reaching six or seven miles round London. There are the fresh winds and wild thyme on Hampstead Heath, and from Richmond you may survey the Naiades. Highgate, where Coleridge lived, Enfield, where Charles Lamb dwelt, are not far off. Turning eastward, there is the river Lea, in which Izaak Walton fished; and fa

d to allay the heat of summer; but the Summer herself (fickle virgin) keeps back, or has been stopped somewhere or other,-p

lists of all shades are plying their trades. Husbands are killing their wives in every day's newspaper. Burglars are peaching against each other; there is no longer honor am

reat wheel of time! To-day we are flickering and buzzing about, our little bits of wings glittering in the sunshine, and to-morrow we are safe enough in the little cre

ets me, and strive in vain to be either sen

rites in rather flagging spi

. I am afraid to think how long, lest the interest on the debt

ome, and I thank you for them now, in a few words, as you observe, but sincerely. I am somewhat brief, even in my gratitude. Had I been in braver spirits, I might have spurred my poor Pegasus, and sent you some lines on the Alma, or the Inkerman,-bloody battles, but exhibiting marks not to be mistaken of the old English heroism, which, after all is said about the enervating effects of luxury, is as grand and manifest as in the ancient fights which English history talks of so much. Even you, sternest of republicans, will, I think, be proud of the indomitable courage of Englishmen, and gladly refer to your old paternity. I, at least, should be proud of Americans fighting after the s

man' could be overthrown by a little fever. I had even begun some doggerel, announcing to you the advent of the white-bait, which I imagined were

little shy, I think (for an American!)-and altogether extremely agreeable. I wish that I could see more of him, but our orbits are wide apart. Now and then-once in two years-I diverge int

n the Isle of Wight, this year, but so unwell that I could not write a line, scarcely read one; sitting out in the sun, eating, drinking, sleeping, and sometimes (poor soul!) imagining I was thinking. One Sunday

y and prosperous in America that you must be on the lookout for clouds, surely! When you see Eme

wthorne, whom he greatly admired. In Nov

Sturgis) a letter of introduction to Leigh Hunt, who was very much pleased with him. Poor Hunt! he is the most genial of men; and, now that his wife is confined to her bed by rheumatism, is recovering

, and you will observe that instead of forwarding my epic on Sevastopol, I select someth

ON

chambers o

nd makes his

looms and fra

e dreams aw

let hi

ce, when the

night and bin

hat he sha

arm white

f the sum

f the r

ss some gr

scorn m

thy sere

en cloud

ove hath t

stay be li

glory hat

Norther

se of Thackeray in his lett

among the rest, your handsome countrywoman, Mrs. R-- S--. It was very pleasant, with that agreeable intermixture of tragedy and comedy that tells so well whe

atin (which is rusty from old age), but I am sure of the sentiment, which is that when people are too happy, they don't know it, and so take

ive too long. Yet how short it is to look back on life! Why, I saw the house the other day where I used to play with a wooden sword when I was five years old! It cannot surely be eighty years ago! What has occurred since? Why, nothing that is worth putting

he gives me a graphic pict

amidst showers of bullets. A round shot passed within a yard of my son, and one of the ladies had a bullet through her shoulder. They were seven days and seven nights in the jungle, without money or meat, scarcely any clothes, no shoes. They forded rivers, lay on the wet ground at night, lapped water from the puddles, and finally rea

might in former times have magnified into an evil, I think of what Euro

f a lithograph now in progress (a portrait of Kenyon) for his American friends. Should it be completed in time, Mr. Sumner will be a

f my tether. I have grown old and apathetic and stupid. All I care for, in the way of personal enjoyment, is quiet, ease,-to have

gain speaks of his son

art, I could understand and (almost) excuse it; but it is from the spoiled portion of the Hindostanees that the revengeful mutiny has arisen. One thing is quite clear, that whatever luxury and refinement have done for our race (for I include Americans with English), they have not diminished the courage and endurance and heroism for which I think we have formerly been famous. We are the same Saxons still. There has never been f

t paragraph about

confess; but as it is, it is by far (a hundred times over) the finest poem ever written by a woman. We know little

e frequent allusions to our civil war. Here i

nts. I am afraid that, however you may mend the schism, you will never be so strong again. I hope, however, that something may arise to terminate the bloodshed; for, after all, fighting is a

ton you are comparatively peaceful, and I know that you a

d Hall,-a poem under feigned names, but really written by Robert Lytton and Julian Fane. It is not good enough for the first, b

character. It has a sort of pre-Raphaelite tendency which does not suit my aged feelings. I am for Love, or the World well lost. But I forget that, if I live beyond the 21st of next November, I shall be seventy-four years of age. I have been obliged to resign my Commissionership of Lunacy, not being able to bear the pain of travelling.

ose of 1864

Some friends of yours and several friends of mine have died. Among the last I cannot help placing Nathaniel Hawthorne, for whom I had a sinc

y of (too many other) infirmities. I stagger and stumble along, with almost seventy-six years on my head, upon failing limbs, which no longer enable me to walk half a mile. I see a great deal, all behind me (the Past), but the prospect before me is not cheerful. Sometimes I wish that I had tried harder for what is called Fame, but generally (as now) I care very little about it. After all,-unless one could be Shakespeare, which (c

ever s

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rom the last letter I ever rece

it was fifty years ago. I have great difficulty in forming the letters, and you would be surprised to learn with what labor this task is performed. Then I have been incessantly occupied in writing (I refer to the mechanical part only) the 'Memoir of Charles Lamb.' It is not my book,-i.e. not my property,-but o

anage to complete my essay. As in the case of Lamb, I am really the only person living who knew much about his daily life. I have

ide's poems which you sent her. She appears surprised to

poetry is than at its commencement. Very good is 'Released,' in the July number, a

telligent, modest young man; as little military as need be, and, like Coriolanus, not baring his wounds (i

(which you would call small in America), and our intercourse is only with the flowers and bees

ibyl, which I think very fine, and as containing a very great future. But the young poets generally disap

y men than any other person of my time. In counting up the names of persons known to me who were, in some way or other, connected with literature, I reckoned

write, I am able to say

incerel

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reat relish for a good modern novel, too; and I recall the titles of several which he recommended warmly for my perusal and republication in America. When I first came to know him, the duties of his office as a Commissioner obliged him to travel about the kingdom, som

author in his proposal to cast aside so many beautiful songs,-songs as well worth saving as any in the volume. Procter argued that, being past seventy, he had now reached to years of discretion, and that his judgment ought to be followed without a murmur. I held out firm to the end of our discussion, and we settled th

ceeded readily into a vein of wit and nimble expression. Verbal felicity seemed natural to him, and his epithets, evidently unprepared, were always perfect. He disliked cant and hard ways of judging character. He praised easily. He had no wish to stand in anybody's shoes but his own, and he said, "There is no literary vice of a darker shade than en

ver Procter's