o am in prison instead in mine.

May God bless you. Do let me hear from you soon, and believe me ever
your friend,

E.B. BARRETT.

_To Mrs. Martin_
November 16, 1844.

My dearest Mrs. Martin, ... To-day I perceive in the 'contents' of the
new 'Westminster Review' that my poems are reviewed in it, and I hope
that you will both be interested enough in my fortunes to read at the
library what may be said of them. Did George tell you that he imagined
(as I also did) the 'Blackwood' paper to be by Mr. Phillimore the
barrister? Well, Mr. Phillimore denies it altogether, has in fact
quarrelled with Christopher North, and writes no more for him, so that
I am quite at a loss now where to carry my gratitude.

Do write to me soon. I hear that everybody should read Dr. Arnold's
'Life.' Do you know also 'E[=o]then,' a work of genius? You have read,
perhaps, Hewitt's 'Visits to Remarkable Places' in the first series
and second; and Mrs. Jameson's 'Visits and Sketches' and 'Life
in Mexico.' Do you know the 'Santa Fe Expedition,' and Custine's
'Russia,' and 'Forest Life' by Mrs. Clavers? You will think that my
associative process is in a most disorderly state, by all this running
up and down the stairs of all sorts of subjects, in the naming of
books. I would write a list, more as a list should be written, if I
could see my way better, and this will do for a beginning in any case.
You do not like romances, I believe, as I do, and then nearly every
romance now-a-days sets about pulling the joints of one's heart and
soul out, as a process of course. 'Ellen Middleton' (which I have
not read yet) is said to be very painful. Do you know Leigh Hunt's
exquisite essays called 'The Indicator and Companion' &c., published
by Moxon? I hold them at once in delight and reverence. May God bless
you both.

I am ever your affectionate
BA.

_To Mrs. Martin_
50 Wimpole Street:
Tuesday, November 26, 1844 [postmark].

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I thank you much for your little notes; and
you know too well how my sympathy answers you, 'as face to face in a
glass,' for me to assure you of it here. Your account of yourselves
altogether I take to be satisfactory, because I never expected anybody
to gain strength very _rapidly_ while in the actual endurance of hard
medical discipline. I am glad you have found out a trustworthy adviser
at Dover, but I feel nevertheless that you may _both trust_ and _hope_
in Dr. Bright, of whom I heard the very