me out well in various letters.
His opponent, the vicar, was Senior Wrangler at our Cambridge, the
very highest University honor in England, and tutor to the present
Lord Grey.

By the way, Mr. ---- wrote to me the other day to ask that I would
let him be here when Mr. Hawthorne comes to see me. I only answered
this request by asking whether he did not intend to come to see _me_
before that time, for certainly he might come to visit an old
friend, especially a sick one, for her own sake, and not merely to
meet a notability, and I am by no means sure that Mr. Hawthorne
might not prefer to come alone or with dear Mr. Bennoch; at all
events it ought to be left to _his_ choice, and besides I have not
lost the hope of your being the introducer of the great romancer,
and then how little should I want anybody to come between us. Begin
as they may, all my paragraphs slide into that refrain of Pray, pray
come!

I have written to you about other kindnesses since that note full of
hopes, but I do not think that I did write to thank you for dear Dr.
Holmes's "Lecture on English Poetesses," or rather the analysis of a
lecture which sins only by over-gallantry. Ah, there is a difference
between the sexes, and the difference is the reverse way to that in
which he puts it! Tell him I sent his charming stanzas on Moore to a
leading member of the Irish committee for raising a monument to his
memory, and that they were received with enthusiasm by the Irish
friends of the poet. I have sent them to many persons in England
worthy to be so honored, and the very cleverest woman whom I have
ever known (Miss Goldsmid) wrote to me only yesterday to thank me
for sending her that exquisite poem, adding, "I think the stanza 'If
on his cheek, etc.,' contains one of the most beautiful similes to
be found in the whole domain of poetry." I also told Mrs. Browning
what dear Dr. Holmes said of her. The American poets whom she
prefers are Lowell and Emerson. Now I know something of Lowell and
of Emerson, but I hold that those lines on Dante's bust are amongst
the finest ever written in the language, whether by American or
Englishman; don't you? And what a grand Dead March is the poem on
Webster! ...Also Mrs. Browning believes in spirit-rapping
stories,--all,--and tells me that Robert Owen has been converted by