n, Henry Chorley,
of the Athenaeum, coaxed me last summer into writing for a Lady's
Journal, which he was editing for Messrs. Bradbury and Evans,
certain Readings of Poetry, old and new, which will, I suppose, form
two or three separate volumes when collected, buried as they now are
amongst all the trash and crochet-work and millinery. They will be
quite as good as MS., and, indeed, every paper will be enlarged and
above as many again added. One pleasure will be the doing what
justice I can to certain American poets,--Mr. Whittier, for
instance, whose "Massachusetts to Virginia" is amongst the finest
things ever written. I gave one copy to a most intelligent Quaker
lady, and have another in the house at this moment for Mrs. Walter,
widow and mother of the two John Walters, father and son, so well
known as proprietors of the Times. I shall cause my book to be
immediately forwarded to you, but I don't think it will be ready for
a twelvemonth. There is a good deal in it of my own prose, and it
takes a wider range than usual of poetry, including much that has
never appeared in any of the specimen books. Of course, dear friend,
this is strictly between you and me, because it would greatly damage
the work to have the few fragments that have appeared as yet brought
forward without revision and completion in their present detached
and crude form.

This England of ours is all alight and aflame with Protestant
indignation against popery; the Church of England being likely to
rekindle the fires of 1780, by way of vindicating the right of
private judgment. I, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of
conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my
own hatred to these things. Cardinal Wiseman has taken advantage of
the attack to put forth one of the most brilliant appeals that has
appeared in my time; of course you will see it in America.

Professor Longfellow has won a station in England such as no
American poet ever held before, and assuredly he deserves it. Except
Beranger and Tennyson, I do not know any living man who has written
things so beautiful. I think I like his Nuremburg best of all. Mr.
Ticknor's great work, too, has won golden opinions, especially from
those whose applause is fame; and I foresee that day by day our
literature will become more mingled with r