May God bless you both!

Your most affectionate
BA.

I am going to tell you, in an antithesis, of the popularising of my poems.  I had a sonnet the other day from Gutter Lane, Cheapside, and I heard that Count d’Orsay had written one of the stanzas of ’Crowned and Buried’ at the bottom of an engraving of Napoleon which hangs in his room.  Now I allow you to laugh at my vaingloriousness, and then you may pin it to Mrs. Best’s satisfaction in the dedication to Dowager Majesty.  By the way—­no, out of the way—­it is whispered that when Queen Victoria goes to Strathfieldsea[120] (how do you spell it?) she means to visit Miss Mitford, to which rumour Miss Mitford (being that rare creature, a sensible woman) says:  ‘May God forbid.’

[Footnote 119:  A great robbery from Rogers’ bank on November 23, 1844, in which the thieves carried off 40,000L worth of notes, besides specie and securities.]

[Footnote 120:  Strathfieldsaye, the Duke of Wellington’s house.]

To John Kenyan Wednesday morning [about December 1844].

I thank you, my dear cousin, and did so silently the day before yesterday, when you were kind enough to bring me the review and write the good news in pencil.  I should be delighted to see you (this is to certify) notwithstanding the frost; only my voice having suffered, and being the ghost of itself, you might find it difficult to hear me without inconvenience.  Which is for you to consider, and not for me.  And indeed the fog, in addition to the cold, makes it inexpedient for anyone to leave the house except upon business and compulsion.

Oh no—­we need not mind any scorn which assails Tennyson and us together.  There is a dishonor that does honor—­and ‘this is of it.’  I never heard of Barnes.[121]

Were you aware that the review you brought was in a newspaper called the ‘League,’ and laudatory to the utmost extravagance—­praising us too for courage in opposing ’war and monopoly’?—­the ’corn ships in the offing’ being duly named.  I have heard that it is probably written by Mr. Cobden himself, who writes for the journal in question, and is an enthusiast in poetry.  If I thought so to the point of conviction, do you know, I should be very much pleased?  You remember that I am a sort of (magna) chartist—­only going a little farther!

Flush was properly ashamed of himself when he came upstairs again for his most ungrateful, inexplicable conduct towards you; and I lectured him well; and upon asking him to ’promise never to behave ill to you again,’ he kissed my hands and wagged his tail most emphatically.  It altogether amounted to an oath, I think.  The truth is that Flush’s nervous system rather than his temper was in fault, and that, in that great cloak, he saw you as in a cloudy mystery.  And then, when you stumbled over the bell rope, he thought the world was come to an end.  He is not accustomed, you see, to the vicissitudes of life.  Try to forgive him and me—­for his ingratitude seems to ‘strike through’ to me; and I am not without remorse.