iary debt to themselves. I shall like to see
the reviews, of course; and that you should have taken the first word
of American judgment into your own mouth is a pleasant thought to
me, and leaves me grateful. In England I have no reason so far to
be otherwise than well pleased. There has not, indeed, been much yet
besides newspaper criticisms--except 'Ainsworth's Magazine,' which
is benignant!--there has not been time. The monthly reviews give
themselves 'pause' in such matters to set the plumes of their dignity,
and I am rather glad than otherwise not to have the first fruits of
their haste. The 'Atlas,' the best newspaper for literary reviews,
excepting always the 'Examiner,' who does not speak yet, is generous
to me, and I have reason to be satisfied with others. And our most
influential quarterly (after the 'Edinburgh' and right 'Quarterly'),
the 'Westminster Review,' promises an early paper with passing words
of high praise. What vexed me a little in one or two of the journals
was an attempt made to fix me in a school, and the calling me
a follower of Tennyson for my habit of using compound words,
noun-substantives, which I used to do before I knew a page of
Tennyson, and adopted from a study of our old English writers, and
Greeks and even Germans. The custom is so far from being peculiar to
Tennyson, that Shelley and Keats and Leigh Hunt are all redolent of
it, and no one can read our old poets without perceiving the leaning
of our Saxon to that species of coalition. Then I have had letters of
great kindness from 'Spirits of the Age,' whose praises are so many
crowns, and altogether am far from being out of spirits about the
prospect of my work. I am glad, however, that I gave the name of
'Poems' to the work instead of admitting the 'Drama of Exile' into the
title-page and increasing its responsibility; for one person who likes
the 'Drama,' ten like the other poems. Both Carlyle and Miss Martineau
select as favorite 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship,' which amuses and
surprises me somewhat. In that poem I had endeavoured to throw
conventionalities (turned asbestos for the nonce) into the fire of
poetry, to make them glow and glitter as if they were not dull things.
Well, I shall soon hear what _you_ like best--and worst. I wonder if
you have been very carnivorous with me! I tremble a little to think of
your hereditary claim to an instrument called the tomahawk. Still, I
am sure I shall have to think _most_, ever as now,