school, and, in my mind, a bad school. One such poem as that on the
bust of Dante is worth a whole wilderness of these new writers, the
very best of them. Certainly nothing better than those two pages
ever crossed the Atlantic.

God bless you, dear friend. Say everything for me to dear Mr. and
Mrs. W----, to Dr. Holmes, to Dr. Parsons, to Mr. Whittier, (how
powerful his new volume is!) to Mr. Stoddard, to Mrs. Sparks, to all
my friends.

Ever most affectionately yours, M.R.M.

I am writing on the 8th of May, but where is the May of the poets?
Half the morning yesterday it snowed, at night there was ice as
thick as a shilling, and to-day it is absolutely as cold as
Christmas. Of course the leaves refuse to unfold, the nightingales
can hardly be said to sing, even the hateful cuckoo holds his peace.
I am hoping to see dear Mr. Bennoch soon to supply some glow and
warmth.

Swallowfield, June 4, 1853.

I write at once, dearest friend, to acknowledge your most kind and
welcome letter. I am better than when I wrote last, and get out
almost every day for a very slow and quiet drive round our lovely
lanes; far more lovely than last year, since the foliage is quite as
thick again, and all the flowery trees, aloes, laburnums,
horse-chestnuts, acacias, honeysuckles, azalias, rhododendrons,
hawthorns, are one mass of blossoms,--literally the leaves are
hardly visible, so that the color, whenever we come upon park,
shrubbery, or plantation, is such as should be seen to be imagined.
In my long life I never knew such a season of flowers; so the wet
winter and the cold spring have their compensation. I get out in
this way with Sam and K---- and the baby, and it gives me exquisite
pleasure, and if you were here the pleasure would be multiplied a
thousand fold by your society; but I do not gain strength in the
least. Attempting to do a little more and take some young people to
the gates of Whiteknights, which, without my presence, would be
closed, proved too far and too rapid a movement, and for two days I
could not stir for excessive soreness all over the body. I am still
lifted down stairs step by step, and it is an operation of such time
(it takes half an hour to get me down that one flight of cottage
stairs), such pain, such fatigue, and such difficulty, that, unless
to ge