is
mere rumor. Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles, or so,
away), and then I'm told there is a sound in Lincoln Inn Fields at
night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and
forks and wine-glasses.

I never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the
George Washington as next Tuesday. Forster, Maclise, and I, and
perhaps Stanfield, are then going aboard the Cunard steamer at
Liverpool, to bid Macready good by, and bring his wife away. It will
be a very hard parting. You will see and know him of course. We gave
him a splendid dinner last Saturday at Richmond, whereat I presided
with my accustomed grace. He is one of the noblest fellows in the
world, and I would give a great deal that you and I should sit
beside each other to see him play Virginius, Lear, or Werner, which
I take to be, every way, the greatest piece of exquisite perfection
that his lofty art is capable of attaining. His Macbeth, especially
the last act, is a tremendous reality; but so indeed is almost
everything he does. You recollect, perhaps, that he was the guardian
of our children while we were away. I love him dearly....

You asked me, long ago, about Maclise. He is such a wayward fellow
in his subjects, that it would be next to impossible to write such
an article as you were thinking of about him. I wish you could form
an idea of his genius. One of these days a book will come out,
"Moore's Irish Melodies," entirely illustrated by him, on every
page. _When_ it comes, I'll send it to you. You will have some
notion of him then. He is in great favor with the queen, and paints
secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the
morning of his birthday, and the like. But if he has a care, he will
leave his mark on more enduring things than palace walls.

And so L---- is married. I remember _her_ well, and could draw her
portrait, in words, to the life. A very beautiful and gentle
creature, and a proper love for a poet. My cordial remembrances and
congratulations. Do they live in the house where we breakfasted?....

I very often dream I am in America again; but, strange to say, I
never dream of you. I am always endeavoring to get home in disguise,
and have a dreary sense of the distance. _Apropos_ of dreams, is it
not a strange thing if writers of fiction never dr