Nothing ever vexed me so much as the other book not being in your hands.  That was Mr. ——­’s fault, for, stiff as Bentley is, Mr. Bennoch would have managed him.....  Of a certainty my first strong interest in American poetry sprang from dear Dr. Holmes’s exquisite little piece of scenery painting, which he delivered where his father had been educated.  You sent me that, and thus made the friendship between Dr. Holmes and me; and now you are yourself—­you, my dearest American friend—­delivering an address at the greatest American University.  It is a great honor, and one....

I suppose Mr. Ticknor tells you the book-news?  The most striking work for years is “Haydon’s Life.”  I hope you have reprinted it, for it is sure, not only of a run, but of a durable success.  You know that the family wanted me to edit the book.  I shrank from a task that required so much knowledge which could only be possessed by one living in the artist world now, to know who was dead and who alive, and Mr. Tom Taylor has done it admirably.  I read the book twice over, so profound was my interest in it.  In his early days, I used to be a sort of safety-valve to that ardent spirit most like Benvenuto Cellini both in pen and tongue and person.  Our dear Mr. Bennoch was the providence of his later years.  They tell me that that powerful work has entirely stopped the sale of Moore’s Life, which, all tinsel and tawdry rags, might have been written by a court newsman or a court milliner.  I wonder whether they will print the other six volumes; for the four out they have given Mrs. Moore three thousand pounds.  A bad account Mr. Tupper gives of ——.  Fancy his conceit!  When Mr. Tupper praised a passage in one of his poems, he said, “If I had known you liked it, I would have omitted that passage in my new edition,” and he has done so by passages praised by persons of taste, cut them out bodily and left the sentences before and after to join themselves how they could.  What a bad figure your President and Mr. ——­ cut at the opening of your Exhibition!  I am sorry for ——­, for, although he has quite forgotten me since his aunt’s book came out, he once stayed three weeks with us, and I liked him.  Well, so many of his countrymen are over-good to me, that I may well forgive one solitary instance of forgetfulness!  Make my love to all my dear friends at Boston and Cambridge.  Tell Mrs. Sparks how dearly I should have liked to have been at her side on the Thursday.  Tell Dr. Holmes that his kind approbation of Rienzi is one of my encouragements in this new edition.  I had a long talk about him with Mr. Ticknor, and rejoice to find him so young.  Thank Mr. Whipple again and again for his kindness.

    Ever yours, M.R.M.

    (No date.)