pleasure in so saying.  Let me add that almost all the clever men whom I have seen are of the same faction; they took up the book and laid it down again.  Do you ever reprint French books, or ever get them translated?  By very far the most delightful work that I have read for many years is Sainte-Beuve’s “Causeries du Lundi,” or his weekly feuilletons in the “Constitutionnel.”  I am sure they would sell if there be any taste for French literature.  It is so curious, so various, so healthy, so catholic in its biography and criticism; but it must be well done by some one who writes good English prose and knows well the literary history of France.  Don’t trust women; they, especially the authoresses, are as ignorant as dirt.  Just as I had got to this point, Mr. Willmot came to spend the evening, and very singularly consulted me about undertaking a series of English Portraits Litteraires, like Sainte-Beuve’s former works.  He will do it well, and I commended him to the charming “Causeries,” and advised him to make that a weekly article, as no doubt he could.  It would only tell the better for the wide diffusion.  He does, you know, the best criticism of The Times.  I have most charming letters from Dr. Parsons and dear Mr. Whittier.  His cordiality is delightful.  God bless you.

    Ever yours, M.R.M.

    (No date.)

Never, my dear friend, did I expect to like so well a man who came in your place, as I do like Mr. Ticknor.  He is an admirable person, very like his cousin in mind and manners, unmistakably good.  It is delightful to hear him talk of you, and to feel that the sort of elder brotherhood which a senior partner must exercise in a firm is in such hands.  He was very kind to little Harry, and Harry likes him next to you.  You know he had been stanch in resisting all the advances of dear Mr ——­, who had asked him if he would not come to him, to which he had responded by a sturdy “no!” He (Mr. Ticknor) came here on Saturday with the dear Bennochs (N.B.  I love him better than ever), and the Kingsleys met him.  Mr. Hawthorne was to have come, but could not leave Liverpool so soon, so that is a pleasure to come.  He will tell you that all is arranged for printing with Colburn’s successors, Hurst and Blackett, two separate works, the plays and dramatic scenes forming one, the stories to be headed by a long tale, of which I have always had the idea in my head, to form almost a novel.  God grant me strength to do myself and my publishers justice in that story!  This whole affair springs from the fancy which Mr. Bennoch has taken to have the plays printed in a collected form during my lifetime, for I had always felt that they would be so printed after my death, so that their coming out now seems to me a sort of anachronism.  The one certain pleasure that I shall derive from this arrangement will be, having my name and yours joined together in the American edition, for we reserve the early sheets.