ich, bright novelties from
America, not reflections of European brightness, but gems all
colored with your own skies and woods and waters. Lord Carlisle, the
most accomplished of our ministers and the most amiable of our
nobles, is giving this very week to the Leeds Mechanics' Institute a
lecture on his travels in the United States, and another on the
poetry of Pope.

May I ask you to transmit the accompanying letter to Mrs. H----? She
has sent to me for titles and dates, and fifty things in which I can
give her little help; but what I do know about my works I have sent
her. Only, as, except that I believe her to live in Philadelphia, I
really am as ignorant of her address as I am of the year which
brought forth the first volume of "Our Village," I am compelled to
go to you for help in forwarding my reply.

Ever, my dear Mr. Fields, most gratefully and faithfully yours,

M.R. MITFORD.

Is not Louis Napoleon the most graceful of our European chiefs? I
have always had a weakness for the Emperor, and am delighted to find
the heir of his name turning out so well.

1851.

February 10, 1851

I cannot tell you, my dear Mr. Fields, how much I thank you for your
most kind letter and parcel, which, after sending three or four
emissaries all over London to seek, (Mr. ---- having ignored the
matter to my first messenger,) was at last sent to me by the Great
Western Railway,--I suspect by the aforesaid Mr. ----, because,
although the name of the London bookseller was dashed out, a
_long-tailed_ letter was left just where the "p" would come in ----,
and as neither Bonn's nor Whittaker's name boasts such a grace, I
suspect that, in spite of his assurance, the packet was in the
Strand, and neither in Ave Maria Lane nor in Henrietta Street, to
both houses I sent. Thank you a thousand times for all your
kindness. The orations are very striking. But I was delighted with
Dr. Holmes's poems for their individuality. How charming a person he
must be! And how truly the portrait represents the mind, the lofty
brow full of thought, and the wrinkle of humor in the eye! (Between
ourselves, I always have a little doubt of genius where there is no
humor; certainly in the very highest poetry the two go
together,--Scott, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Burns.) Another charming
thing in Dr. Holmes is, t