falls infinitely short of his model, and wants the vigor and spirit of the Imaginary Conversations.' I have received your MS., and am delighted with it. Mr. Willis delivered it to me with your letter, and I endeavored to show him all the civility in my power, in honor of his recommendation.

"A fatality seems to pursue the books I send you. Colonel Hughes, the brother of Lord Dinorben, pledged himself to give you the 'Conversations of Lord Byron,' which I put into his hand, and has been as negligent as the friend by whom I sent 'The Repealers.' The first person I find going to Italy I shall again consign a copy to; and I am really mortified that you should not have sooner had them, knowing as I do the indulgence with which you would have perused any thing from my pen.

"Lord Mulgrave, who is lately returned from Jamaica, has been sitting with me, and talked of you very kindly; finding that I was about to write to you, he desired to offer you his kind regards. M. BLESSINGTON."

"London, Seamore Place, May Fair, October 13th, 1834. "The introduction to your 'Examination' is printed, and the Conference of Spenser and Lord Essex' follows the Examination,' and reads admirably in print. I have read all the proof-sheets, and hope you will be satisfied with their correctness, and Messrs. Saunders and Ottley have informed me that the book will be out in the course of this week. Of its success I entertain no doubt, though I have had many proofs that the excellency of literary productions can not always command their success. So much depends on the state of the literary horizon when a work presents itself: the sky is at present much overclouded by the unsettled state of politics at home and abroad; but, notwithstanding all this, I am very sanguine in my expectations about the success your book will have, and so are the publishers. The 'Conference' is peculiarly interesting, as bearing on the state of Ireland, which, alas! now, as in the reign of Elizabeth, remains unsettled, unsatisfied, and unsatisfying, resisting hitherto the various remedies that have been applied to her disease by severe surgeons or timid practitioners. I think very highly of the 'Examination; it is redolent with the joyous spirit of the immortal bard with whom you have identified yourself; his frequent pleasantry wantons in the breasts of song, while snatches of pathos break in continually in the prose. The 'Conference' is deeply interesting, and so dissimilar from the 'Examination,' that it is difficult to imagine it the work of the same mind, if one did not know that true genius possesses the power of variety in style and thought. I wish you could be persuaded to write your Memoirs; what a treasure they would prove to posterity! Tracing the working of such a mind as yours, a mind that has never submitted to the ignoble fetters that a corrupt and artificial society would impose, could not fail to be highly interesting as well as useful, by giving courage to the timid and strength to the weak, and teaching them to rely on their own intellectual resources, instead of leaning on that feeble reed the world, which can wound but not support those who rely on it. Mr.

E. L. Bulwer's new novel, The Last Days of Pompeii,' has been out a fortnight. It is an admirable work, and does him honor. He refers to you in one of the notes to it as his learned friend, Mr. Landor;' so you see you are in a fair way of being praised (if not understood) by the dandies, as his book is in the hands of the whole tribe. The novel is dedicated to our friend Sir W. Gell. There is no year in which your fame does not gain at all sides, and it is now so much the fashion to praise you, that you are quoted by many who are as incapable of appreciating as of equaling you. M. BLESSINGTON."

"London, Seamore Place, March 16th, 1835. "I am glad that you have at length received the 'Conversations,' and that they give you a better opinion of Byron. He was one of the many proofs of a superior nature spoiled by civilization. The evil commenced when he was a school-boy, and continued its baneful influence over him up to the last moment of his life. But then there were outbreakings of the original goodness of the soil, though over-cultiavtion had deteriorated it.

"His first impulses were always good, and it was only the reflections suggested by experience that checked them.

"Then consider that he died when only thirty-seven years old. The passions had not ceased to torment, though they no longer wholly governed him. He was arrived at that period in human life when he saw the fallacy of the past without having grasped the wisdom of the future. Had ten years been added to his existence, he would have been a better and a happier man. Are not goodness and happiness the nearest approach to synonymous terms?

"I have sent you, by a Mr. Stanley, my two novels, and trust you will soon receive them. I fear they will not interest you, for they are written on the every-day business of life, without once entering the region of imagination. I wrote because I wanted money, and was obliged to select subjects that would command it from my publisher. None but ephemeral ones will now catch the attention of the mass of readers. The Quarterly Review' names you in the last number, and with praise, though the praise, like all that appears in that clever but cynical publication, is measured out most cautiously. Still, it is valuable, because all the world knows it is praise well earned, and extorted by the merit of the author, rather than due to the generosity of the critic. It promises a general notice of your works, which, I trust, will soon appear.

"I see your friend Mr. Robinson sometimes, but not so often as I could wish; he is a person of sound head, and as sound a heart, and full of knowledge. We talk of you every time we meet, and are selfish enough to wish you were near us in this cold and murky climate. If you knew how much I value your letters, you would write to me very often; they breathe of Italy, and take me back to other and happier times.

"Do you remember our calm evenings on the terrace of the Casa Pelosi, where, by the light of the moon, we looked on the smooth and glassy Arno, and talked of past ages? Those were happy times, and I frequently revert to them.

"The verses in your letter pleased me much, as do all that you write. What have you been doing lately?

"What a capital book might be written, illustrative of the passions, when they stood forth more boldly than at present, in the Middle Ages. The history of Italy teems with such, and you might give them vitality.

"M. BLESSINGTON."

"Thursday evening.

“I send you the engraving, and have only to wish that it may sometimes remind you of the original. You are associated in my memory with some of my happiest days; you were the friend, and the highly-valued friend, of my dear and lamented husband, and as such, even without any of the numberless claims you have to my regard, you could not be otherwise than highly esteemed. It appears to me that I have not quite lost him who made life dear to me when I am near those he loved, and that knew how to value him. Five fleeting years have gone by since our delicious evenings on the lovely Arnoevenings never to be forgotten, and the recollections of which ought to cement the friendships then formed. This effect I can, in truth, say has been produced on me, and I look forward with confidence to keeping alive, by a frequent correspondence, the friendship you owe me, no less for that I feel for you, but as the widow of one you loved, and that truly loved you. We, or, more properly speaking, I, live in a world where friendship is little known, and, were it not for one or two individuals like yourself, I might be tempted to exclaim with Socrates, 'My friends! there are no friends.' Let us prove that the philosopher was wrong, and, if Fate has denied us the comfort of meeting, let us by letters keep up our friendly intercourse. You will tell me what you think and feel in your Tuscan retirement, and I will tell you what I do in this modern Babylon, where thinking and feeling are almost unknown. Have I not reason to complain that in your sojourn in London you do not give me a single day? and yet, methinks, you promised to stay a week, and that of that week I should have my share. I rely on your promise of coming to see me again before you leave London, and I console myself for the disappointment of seeing so little of you, by recollecting the welcome and the happiness that wait you at home. Long may you enjoy it, is the sincere wish of your attached friend,

M. BLESSINGTON.

"P.S.—I shall be glad to hear what you think of the Conversations. I could have made them better, but they would no longer have been, as they now are, genuine."

"Seamore Place, October 1st, 1835.

"I know not when I felt more pleasure than on hearing of your arrival in England. I had been absent from town, on the coast of Hampshire, and not in York or Doncaster, where the newspapers sent me. Health, and not pleasure, was the object of my expedition, and the sea-breezes have done me much

good. I had heard of your having passed through London before I got your letter, and console myself for not having seen you by the hope that, on your way back, you will give me a few days of your society, that we may talk over old friends and old times, one of the few comforts (though it is a melancholy one) that age gives. I am glad that you are again soon to appear in print, and the subject delights me. It is one you will treat con amore, and that only you can treat as it deserves. I am so charmed with the Parable, that I dispatched it forthwith to the printer, and expect to have a proof very soon. It is just the very essence of the beauty of holiness. M. BLESSINGTON."

"Gore House, Kensington Gore, March 10th, 1836. "I write to you from my new residence, in what I call the country, being a mile from London. I have not forgotten that your last letter announced the pleasing intelligence that you were to be in London in April, and I write to request that you will take up your residence at my house. I have a comfortable room to offer you, and, what is better still, a cordial welcome. Pray bear this in mind, and let me have the pleasure of having you under my roof. Have you heard of the death of poor Sir William Gell? He expired at Naples, on the 4th of February, literally exhausted by his bodily infirmity.

"Poor Gell! I regret him much; he was gentle, kind-hearted, and goodtempered, possessed a great fund of information, which was always at the service of any one requiring it, and, if free from passion (not always, in my opinion, a desirable thing), totally exempt from prejudice, which I hold to be most desirable. How much more frequently we think of a friend we have lost than when he lived! I have thought of poor Gell continually since I got Mr. Craven's melancholy letter announcing his demise, yet when he lived I have passed weeks without bestowing a thought on him. Is not this a curious fact in all our natures, that we only begin to know the value of friends when they are lost to us forever? It ought to teach us to turn with increased tenderness to those that remain, and I always feel that my affection for living friends is enlivened by the reflection that they too may pass away.

"If we were only half as lenient to the living as we are to the dead, how much happiness might we render them, and from how much vain and bitter remorse might we be spared, when the grave, the all-atoning grave,' has closed over them. I long to read your book; it will be to me like water in the desert to the parched pilgrim. Let me hear from you, and, above all, tell me that you will take up your abode with me, where quiet and friendship await you. "M. BLESSINGTON."

"Gore House, April 4th, 1836.

"I have to thank you for the very highest intellectual feast I have ever enjoyed. Yes, your Aspasia and Pericles' are delicious, and reflect everlasting honor on you. Never was there so beautiful a mirror of wisdom and tenderness; the book continually filled my eyes with tears, and my heart with

gentle and generous emotions. I am proud of and for you, and repeat frequently to myself, he is my friend. How delightful, yet how rare is it, when our friends make us feel proud of them! every one talks of your book, and every one is loud in its praises. I rejoice in this for two reasons; the first, that its author is my friend, and the second, that it gives me a better opinion of human nature, to find that even the worldlings of London can feel what is elevated, pure, and holy. Never was there such a triumph as you have achieved by this book! Mr. Fonblanque is impatient to shake you by the hand. He is worthy to be your friend, and is, in the true sense of the word, a noble-minded man. I shall be at Gore House the whole season, and charmed to see you; come and take possession of your room in it--why can you not come before May? I have taken steps to get your MSS., &c., from Mr. Willis, and trust to be able soon to tell you that they are in my possession. How often, while reading your book, did I think of the delight it would have given your dear friend, my lost husband! He could well sympathize in such sentiments. M. BLESSINGTON."

"Gore House, June 8th, 1836. "It gave me great pleasure to hear from you. Of ingratitude or impoliteness I can never suspect you, because you know how sincerely I esteem you-too well to be wicked enough to be ungrateful, and you are, in my opinion, the most genuinely polite man I know. You must come and pay me another visit when you return from your relations; nowhere can you bestow your society where it can be more highly valued than at Gore House, and this ought to induce you to be more liberal of the gift. Your Epigrams' are excellent, and prove that genius can be as happy in trifles as in great things. I think of you very often, and miss you as often; it was happily said that friends, like lovers, should be very near or very distant; and this I feel, for one gets reconciled to the absence that a great distance causes, and impatient at that which a short one produces. When you were in Italy, I knew it was useless to hope to see you; but at Bristol, I reproach you for not giving me more of your society. M. BLESSINGTON.”

"Gore House, Jan. 25th, 1837.

"I have furnished your note to Mr. Hall, the husband of Mrs. Hall, the authoress. Indeed you are wrong if you imagine that all good judges do not rate you as you deserve to be rated. Unfortunately, they are not so numerous as the enviers, who try to depreciate what they can never hope to equal. You send me some alterations for a poem I have not in my possession-your Clytemnestra. Mr. Forster told me that you had sent him some portions of it from Heidelberg, and probably you have fancied it was to me. As all you write is too precious to be mislaid, tell me, without delay, how the affair rests. Have you seen poor Augustus Hare's sermons?

"I got them a few days ago, with a pencil note written on his death-bed.