We have had a Mr. Richmond here, lecturing and so forth. Do you know
him? I can fancy what Mr. Webster would be on the Hungarian
question. To hear Mr. Cobden talk of it was like the sound of a
trumpet.
Three-mile Cross, November 25, 1850.
I have been waiting day after day, dear Mr. Fields, to send you two
books,--one new, the other old,--one by my friend, Mr. Bennett; the
other a volume [her Dramatic Poems] long out of print in England,
and never, I think, known in America. I had great difficulty in
procuring the shabby copy which I send you, but I think you will
like it because it is mine, and comes to you from friend to friend,
and because there is more of myself, that is, of my own inner
feelings and fancies, than one ever ventures to put into prose. Mr.
Bennett's volume, which is from himself as well as from me, I am
sure you will like; most thoroughly would like each other if ever
you met. He has the poet's heart and the poet's mind, large,
truthful, generous, and full of true refinement, delightful as a
companion, and invaluable as a man.
After eight years' absolute cessation of composition, Henry Chorley,
of the Athenaeum, coaxed me last summer into writing for a Lady's
Journal, which he was editing for Messrs. Bradbury and Evans,
certain Readings of Poetry, old and new, which will, I suppose, form
two or three separate volumes when collected, buried as they now are
amongst all the trash and crochet-work and millinery. They will be
quite as good as MS., and, indeed, every paper will be enlarged and
above as many again added. One pleasure will be the doing what
justice I can to certain American poets,--Mr. Whittier, for
instance, whose "Massachusetts to Virginia" is amongst the finest
things ever written. I gave one copy to a most intelligent Quaker
lady, and have another in the house at this moment for Mrs. Walter,
widow and mother of the two John Walters, father and son, so well
known as proprietors of the Times. I shall cause my book to be
immediately forwarded to you, but I don't think it will be ready for
a twelvemonth. There is a good deal in it of my own prose, and it
takes a wider range than usual of poetry, including much that has
never appeared in any of the specimen books. Of course, dear friend,
this is strictly between you and me, because it would greatly damage
the work to have the few fragments that have appeared as yet brought
forward without revision and completion in their present detached
and crude form.
This England of ours is all alight and aflame with Protestant
indignation against popery; the Church of England being likely to
rekindle the fires of 1780, by way of vindicating the right of
private judgment. I, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of
conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my
own hatred to these things. Cardinal Wiseman has taken advantage of
the attack to put forth one of the most brilliant appeals that has
appeared in my time; of course you will see it in America.
Professor Longfellow has won a station in England such as no
American poet ever held before, and assuredly he deserves it. Except
Beranger and Tennyson, I do not know any living man who has written
things so beautiful. I think I like his Nuremburg best of all. Mr.
Ticknor's great work, too, has won golden opinions, especially from
those whose applause is fame; and I foresee that day by day our
literature will become more mingled with rich, bright novelties from
America, not reflections of European brightness, but gems all
colored with your own skies and woods and waters. Lord Carlisle, the
most accomplished of our ministers and the most amiable of our
nobles, is giving this very week to the Leeds Mechanics' Institute a
lecture on his travels in the United States, and another on the
poetry of Pope.
May I ask you to transmit the accompanying letter to Mrs. H----? She
has sent to me for titles and dates, and fifty things in which I can
give her little help; but what I do know about my works I have sent
her. Only, as, except that I believe her to live in Philadelphia, I
really am as ignorant of her address as I am of the year which
brought forth the first volume of "Our Village," I am compelled to
go to you for help in forwarding my reply.
Ever, my dear Mr. Fields, most gratefully and faithfully yours,