My Very Dear Friend:  Mr. Hillard (whom I shall be delighted to see if he come to England and will let me know when he can get here)—­Mr. Hillard has just put into verse my own feelings about you.  It is the one comfort belonging to the hard work of these two books (for besides the Dramatic Works in two thick volumes, there are prose stories in two also, and I have one long tale, almost a novel, to write),—­it is the one comfort of this labor that I shall see our names together on one page.  I have just finished a long gossiping preface of thirty or forty pages to the Dramatic Works, which is much more an autobiography than the Recollections, and which I have tried to make as amusing as if it were ill-natured. That work is dedicated to our dear Mr. Bennoch, another consolation.  I sent the dedication to dear Mr. Ticknor, but as his letter of adieu did not reach me till two or three days after it was written, and I am not quite sure that I recollected the number in Paternoster Row, I shall send it to you here.  “To Francis Bennoch, Esq., who blends in his life great public services with the most genial private hospitality; who, munificent patron of poet and of painter, is the first to recognize every talent except his own, content to be beloved where others claim to be admired; to him, equally valued as companion and as friend, these volumes are most respectfully and affectionately inscribed by the author.”  I write from memory, but if this be not it, it is very like it, (and I beg you to believe that my preface is a little better English than this agglomeration of “its.”)

Mr. Kingsley says that Alfred Tennyson says that Alexander Smith’s poems show fancy, but not imagination; and on my repeating this to Mrs. Browning, she said it was exactly her impression.  For my part I am struck by the extravagance and the total want of finish and of constructive power, and I am in hopes that ultimately good will come out of evil, for Mr. Kingsley has written, he tells me, a paper called “Alexander Pope and Alexander Smith,” and Mr. Willmott, the powerful critic of The Times, takes the same view, he tells me, and will doubtless put it into print some day or other, so that the carrying this bad school to excess will work for good.  By the way, Mr. ——­, whose Imogen is so beautiful, sent me the other day a terrible wild affair in that style, and I wrote him a frank letter, which my sincere admiration for what he does well gives me some right to do.  He has in him the making of a great poet; but, if he once take to these obscurities, he is lost.  I hope I have not offended him, for I think it is a real talent, and I feel the strongest interest in him.  My young friend, James Payn, went a fortnight or three weeks ago to Lasswade and spent an evening with Mr. De Quincey.  He speaks of him just as you do, marvellously fine in point of conversation, looking like an old beggar, but with the manners of a prince, “if,” adds James Payn, “we