s violence and want of personal self-control on the stage;
for as he stood at the side scene by me, in the last act of "King
Lear," ready to rush on with me, his Cordelia, dead in his arms, he
made various prefatory and preparatory excuses to me, deprecating
beforehand my annoyance at being dragged and pulled about after his
usual fashion, saying that necessarily the scene was a disagreeable
one for the "poor corpse." I had no very agreeable anticipation of
it myself, and therefore could only answer, "Some one must play it
with you, Mr. Macready, and I feel sure that you will make it as
little distressing to me as you can;" which I really believe he
intended to do, and thought he did.]

I have received this morning from Liverpool, in answer to my letter
about my readings, a very earnest request that I would give _lectures_
upon Shakespeare. This I have declined doing, not having either the
requisite knowledge or ability nor the necessary time properly to
prepare a careful analysis of the smallest portion of such over-brimming
subjects as those plays. I should like to study again Hazlitt's and
Coleridge's comments upon Shakespeare; the former I used to think
excellent.

Mrs. Grote herself wrote those stanzas upon Mendelssohn which you saw in
the _Spectator_. She urged me vehemently, while I was with her at the
Beeches, to do something of the kind; but I could not. She then showed
me her verses, which please me better now than they did then; for then
the painful association of his former existence in that place, and the
excitement of his beautiful music, which she plays extremely well, had
affected my imagination and feelings so much that I should have found it
very difficult to be satisfied with any poetical tribute to him that was
not of the very highest order.

She and I walked together to the spot in the beautiful woodland where he
had lain down to rest, and where she wishes to erect a monument; and I
cannot tell you how profoundly I was touched, as we stood silently
there, while the great heavy drops, melting in the winter evening's
sunshine, fell from the boughs of the beech-trees like slow tears upon
the spot where he had lain.

I have read more of Stanley's "Sermons," and quite agree with you in the
difference you draw between them and Mr. Furness's book; the spirit of
both is kindred....

I don't know anything about the income-tax. I am getting frightfully
behind the