inders contrived it admirably. They are most grateful for your
kindness, and most gratefully shall I receive the promised volumes.
I have not yet got "the pamphlet," and am much afraid it is buried
in what Miss De Quincey calls her "father's chaos"; but I have
charming letters from her, and am heartily glad that I wrote. You
have the way (like Mr. Bennoch) of making friends still better
friends, and bringing together those who, without you, would have
had no intercourse. It is the very finest of all the fine arts. Tell
dear Dr. Holmes that the more I hear of him, the more I feel how
inadequate has been all that I have said to express my own feelings;
and tell President Sparks that his charming wife ought to have
received a long letter from me at the same moment with yourself. Mr.
Hawthorne's new work will be a real treat. Tell me if Mr. Bennoch
has sent you some stanzas on Ireland, which have more of the very
highest qualities of Beranger than I have ever seen in English
verse. We who love him shall have to be very proud of dear Mr.
Bennoch. Tell me, too, if our solution of the line, "A
fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," was the first; and why the
new President is at once called General and talked of as a civilian.
The other President goes on nobly, does he not?

Say everything for me to dear Mr. and Mrs. W---- and all friends.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, December 14, 1852.

O my very dear friend, how much too kind you are to me, who have
nothing to give you in return but affection and gratitude! Mr.
Bennett brought me your beautiful book on Saturday, and you may
think how heartily we wished that you had been here also. But you
will come this spring, will you not? I earnestly hope nothing will
come in the way of that happiness. Before leaving the subject of our
good little friend, let me say that, talking over our own best
authors and your De Quincey (N.B. The pamphlet has not arrived yet,
I fear it is forever buried in De Quincey's "chaos"),--talking of
these things, we both agreed that there was another author, probably
little known in America, who would be quite worthy of a reprint,
William Hazlitt. Is there any complete edition of his Lectures and
Essays? I should think they would come out well, now that Thackeray
is giving his Lectures. I know that Charles La