Mary and William Howitt are the main support of the People’s Journal.  I saw them several times at their cheerful and elegant home.  In Mary Howitt, I found the same engaging traits of character we are led to expect from her books for children.  At their house, I became acquainted with Dr. Southwood Smith, the well-known philanthropist.  He is at present engaged in the construction of good tenements, calculated to improve the condition of the working people.

TO R.W.E.

Paris, Nov. 16, 1846.—­I meant to write on my arrival in London, six weeks ago; but as it was not what is technically called “the season,” I thought I had best send all my letters of introduction at once, that I might glean what few good people I could.  But more than I expected were in town.  These introduced others, and in three days I was engaged in such a crowd of acquaintance, that I had hardly time to dress, and none to sleep, during all the weeks I was in London.

I enjoyed the time extremely.  I find myself much in my element in European society.  It does not, indeed, come up to my ideal, but so many of the encumbrances are cleared away that used to weary me in America, that I can enjoy a freer play of faculty, and feel, if not like a bird in the air, at least as easy as a fish in water.

In Edinburgh, I met Dr. Brown.  He is still quite a young man, but with a high ambition, and, I should think, commensurate powers.  But all is yet in the bud with him.  He has a friend, David Scott, a painter, full of imagination, and very earnest in his views of art.  I had some pleasant hours with them, and the last night which they and I passed with De Quincey, a real grand conversazione, quite in the Landor style, which lasted, in full harmony, some hours.

CARLYLE.

Of the people I saw in London, you will wish me to speak first of the Carlyles.  Mr. C. came to see me at once, and appointed an evening to be passed at their house.  That first time, I was delighted with him.  He was in a very sweet humor,—­full of wit and pathos, without being overbearing or oppressive.  I was quite carried away with the rich flow of his discourse; and the hearty, noble earnestness of his personal being brought back the charm which once was upon his writing, before I wearied of it.  I admired his Scotch, his way of singing his great full sentences, so that each one was like the stanza of a narrative ballad.  He let me talk, now and then, enough to free my lungs and change my position, so that I did not get tired.  That evening, he talked of the present state of things in England, giving light, witty sketches of the men of the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet, homely stories he told of things he had known of the Scotch peasantry.  Of you he spoke with hearty kindness; and he told, with beautiful feeling, a story of some poor farmer, or artisan, in the country, who on Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that dirty English world, and sits reading the Essays, and looking upon the sea.