does not improve my powers of composition.  This wet summer and autumn have been terribly against me.  I am lamer even than when Mr. Ticknor saw me, and sometimes cannot even dip the pen in the ink without holding it in my left hand.  Thank God my head is spared, and my heart is, I think, as young as ever.

I had a letter to-day from Mr. Chorley; he has been staying all the autumn with Sir William Molesworth, now a Cabinet Minister, but he complains terribly about his own health, notwithstanding he has a play coming out at the Olympic, which Mr. Wigan has taken.  Mrs. Kingsley, a most sweet person, has a cough which has forced them to send her to the sea.  You shall be sure to see both him and Mr. Willmott if I can compass it; but we live, each of us, seven miles apart, and these country clergymen are so tied to their parish that they are difficult to catch.  However, they both come to see me whenever they can, and we must contrive it.  You will like both in different ways.  Mr. Willmott is one of the most agreeable men in the world, and Mr. Kingsley is charming.  I have another dear friend, not an author, whom I prefer to either,—­Hugh Pearson.  He made for himself a collection of De Quincey, when a lad at Oxford.  You would like him, I think, better than anybody; but he too is a country clergyman, living eight miles off.  Poor Mr. Norton!  His letters were charming.  He is connected in my mind with Mrs. Hemans, too, to whom he was so kind.  You must say everything for me to dear Mrs. Sparks.  I seem most ungrateful to her, but I really have little power of writing letters just now.  Did I tell you that Mr. ——­ sent me a poem called ——­, which I am very sorry that he ever wrote.  It has shocked Mr. Bennoch even more than it did me.  You must get him to write more poems like ——.  A young friend of mine has brought out a little volume in which there is striking evidence of talent; but none of these young writers take pains.  How very pretty is that scrap on a country church!  Mrs. Browning is at Florence, but is going to Rome.  She says that your countryman, Mr. Story, has made a charming statuette, I think of Beethoven, or else of Mendelssohn, which ought to make his reputation.  She is crazy about mediums.  She says (but I have not heard it elsewhere) that Thackeray and Dickens are to winter at Rome, and Alfred Tennyson at Florence.  Mrs. Trollope has quite recovered, and receives as usual.  How full of beauty Mr. Hillard’s book is! thank him for it again and again.  Did I tell you that they are going to engrave a portrait of me by Haydon, now belonging to Mr. Bennoch, for the Dramatic Works?  God bless you, my very dear friend.  Say everything for me to Mr. Ticknor and Dr. Holmes and Dr. Parsons, and all my friends in Boston.  Little Henry grows a very sensible, intelligent boy, and is a great favorite at his school.  He is getting on with French.

    Once more, ever yours, M.R.M.

1854.