is here for his
holidays. His excellent mother and step-father have nursed me rather
as if they had been my children than my servants. Everybody has been
most kind. The champagne, which I believe keeps me alive, is dear
Mr. Bennoch's present; but you will understand how ill I am when I
tell you that my breath is so much affected by the slightest
exertion that I cannot bear even to be lifted into bed, but have
spent the last eight nights sitting up, with my feet supported on a
leg-rest. This from exhaustion, not from disease of the lungs.

Give the enclosed to Dr. Parsons. You know what I have always
thought of his genius. In my mind no poems ever crossed the Atlantic
which approached his stanzas on Dante and on the death of Webster,
and yet you have great poets too. Think how glad and proud I am to
hear of the honor he has done me. I wish you had transcribed the
verses.

God bless you, my beloved friend! Say everything for me to all my
dear friends, to Dr. Parsons, to Dr. Holmes, to Mr. Whittier, to
Professor Longfellow, to Mr. Taylor, to Mr. Stoddard, to Mrs.
Sparks, and above all to the excellent Mr. Ticknor and the dear
W----s.

Ever yours, M.R.M.

Swallowfield, July 28, 1854.

My Very Dear Friend: This is a sort of postscript to my last,
written instantly on the receipt of yours and sent through Mr. ----.
I hope you received it, for he is so impetuous that I always a
little doubt his care; at least it was when sent through him that
the loss of letters to and fro took place. However, I enjoined him
to be careful this time, and he assured me that he was so.

The purport of this is to add the name of my friend, Mr. Willmott,
to the authors who wish for the advantage of your firm as their
American publishers. I have begged him to write to you himself, and
I hope he has done so, or that he will do so. But he is staying at
Richmond with sick relatives, and I am not sure. You know his works,
of course. They are becoming more and more popular in England, and
he is writing better and better. The best critical articles in The
Times are by him. He is eminently a scholar, and yet full of
anecdote of the most amusing sort, with a memory like Scott, and a
charming habit of applying his knowledge. His writings become more
and more like his talk, and I am confident that you w