eanness. Would that the case were so! Would that
intellect could preserve from low vice! But, alas! it cannot. No,
the whole character of Cecil is painted with but too faithful a hand;
it is very masterly, because it is very true. Lewes is nobly right
when he says that intellect is _not_ the highest faculty of man,
though it may be the most brilliant; when he declares that the
_moral_ nature of his kind is more sacred than the _intellectual_
nature; when he prefers "goodness, lovingness, and quiet
self-sacrifice to all the talents in the world."

'There is something divine in the thought that genius preserves from
degradation, were it but true; but Savage tells us it was not true
for him; Sheridan confirms the avowal, and Byron seals it with
terrible proof.

'You never probably knew a Cecil Chamberlayne. If you had known such
a one you would feel that Lewes has rather subdued the picture than
overcharged it; you would know that mental gifts without moral
firmness, without a clear sense of right and wrong, without the
honourable principle which makes a man rather proud than ashamed of
honest labour, are no guarantee from even deepest baseness.

'I have received the _Dublin University Magazine_. The notice is
more favourable than I had anticipated; indeed, I had for a long time
ceased to anticipate any from that quarter; but the critic does not
strike one as too bright. Poor Mr. James is severely handled; _you_,
likewise, are hard upon him. He always strikes me as a miracle of
productiveness.

'I must conclude by thanking you for your last letter, which both
pleased and instructed me. You are quite right in thinking it
exhibits the writer's character. Yes, it exhibits it _unmistakeably_
(as Lewes would say). And whenever it shall be my lot to submit
another MS. to your inspection, I shall crave the full benefit of
certain points in that character: I shall ever entreat my _first
critic_ to be as impartial as he is friendly; what he feels to be out
of taste in my writings, I hope he will unsparingly condemn. In the
excitement of composition, one is apt to fall into errors that one
regrets afterwards, and we never feel our own faults so keenly as
when we see them exaggerated in others.

'I conclude in haste, for I have written too long a letter; but it is
becaus