Mr. Stratten has just been here.  I admire him more than I ever did, for his admiration of my doves.  By the way, I am sure he thought them the most agreeable of the whole party; for he said, what he never did before, that he could sit here for an hour!  Our love to Annie—­and forgive me for Baskettiring a letter to you.  I mean, of course, as to size, not type.

Yours affectionately,
E.B.  BARRETT.

Is your poem printed yet?

[Footnote 30:Do you mind that deed of Ate Which you bound me to so fast,—­ Reading ‘De Virginitate,’ From the first line to the last?  How I said at ending solemn, As I turned and looked at you, That Saint Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do?

‘Wine of Cyprus’ (Poetical Works, iii. 139)]

To H.S.  Boyd [74 Gloucester Place:] Tuesday [Christmas 1836].

My dear Friend,—­I am very much obliged to you for the two copies of your poem, so beautifully printed, with such ‘majestical’ types, on such ‘magnifical’ paper, as to be almost worthy of Baskett himself.  You are too liberal in sending me more than one copy; and pray accept in return a duplicate of gratitude.

As to my ‘Seraphim,’ they are not returned to me, as in the case of their being unaccepted, I expressly begged they might be.  Had the old editor been the present one, my inference would of course be, that their insertion was a determined matter; but as it is, I don’t know what to think.[31] A long list of great names, belonging to intending contributors, appeared in the paper a day or two ago, and among them was Miss Mitford’s.

Are you wroth with me for not saying a word about going to see you?  Arabel and I won’t affirm it mathematically—­but we are, metaphysically, talking of paying our visit to you next Tuesday.  Don’t expect us, nevertheless.

Yours affectionately,
E.B.  BARRETT.

What are my Christmas good wishes to be?  That you may hold a Field in your right hand, and a Baskerville in your left, before the year is out!  That degree of happiness will satisfy at least the bodily part of you.

You may wish, in return, for me, that I may learn to write rather more legibly than ‘at these presents.’

Our love to Annie.

Won’t you send your new poem to Mr. Barker, to the care of Mr. Valpy, with your Christmas benedictions?

[Footnote 31:  As a matter of fact, ‘The Seraphim’ was not printed in the New Monthly, being probably thought too long.]

To Mrs. Martin. [74 Gloucester Place:] January 23, 1837 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,—­I am standing in Henrietta’s place, she says—­but not, I say, to answer your letter to her yesterday, but your letter to me, some weeks ago—­which I meant to answer much more immediately if the ignis fatuus of a house (you see to what a miserable fatuity I am reduced, of applying your pure country metaphors to our brick pollutions) had not been gliding just before us, and I had not much wished to be able to tell you of our settlement.  As it is, however, I must write, and shall keep a solemn silence on the solemn subject of our shifting plans....