atiric ill-minded _Abelard
and Heloise_, another _Troilus, quoi!_ it is not pleasant, truly, but
what strength, what verve, what knowledge of life, and the Canon! What a
finished, humorous, rich picture is the Canon! Ah, there was nobody like
Shakespeare. But what I like is the David and Absalom business: Absalom
is so well felt--you love him as David did; David's speech is one roll
of royal music from the first act to the fifth.

I am enjoying _Solomon Crabb_ extremely; Solomon's capital adventure
with the two highwaymen and Squire Trecothick and Parson Vance; it is as
good, I think, as anything in Joseph Andrews. I have just come to the
part where the highwayman with the black patch over his eye has tricked
poor Solomon into his place, and the squire and the parson are hearing
the evidence. Parson Vance is splendid. How good, too, is old Mrs. Crabb
and the coastguardsman in the third chapter, or her delightful quarrel
with the sexton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdone;
but I don't know either; he's such damned fine sport. Do you like Sally
Barnes? I'm in love with her. Constable Muddon is as good as Dogberry
and Verges put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the
highwayman gives him Solomon's own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs.
Muddon, and just then up drives Lord Conybeare, and instead of helping
Solomon, calls him all the rascals in Christendom--O Henry Fielding,
Henry Fielding! Yet perhaps the scenes at Seaham are the best. But I'm
bewildered among all these excellences.

Stay, cried a voice that made the welkin crack--This
here's a dream, return and study BLACK!

--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO ALEXANDER IRELAND

The following is in reply to a letter Stevenson had received on some
questions connected with his proposed Life of Hazlitt from the
veteran critic and bibliographer since deceased, Mr. Alexander
Ireland. At the foot is to be found the first reference to his new
amusement of wood engraving for the Davos Press:--

[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882._]

MY DEAR SIR,--This formidable paper need not alarm you; it argues
nothing beyond penury of other sorts, and is not at all likely to lead
me into a long letter. If I were at all grateful it would, for yours has
just passed for me a considerable part of a stormy evening. And speaking
of gratitude, let me at once and with becoming eagerness accept your
kind invitation to Bowdon.