and half at mine, I think. I wish you had sent over to me some of your poems which you told me you were printing at Florence: and often I wish I was at Florence to give you some of my self-satisfied advice on what you should select. For though I do not pretend to write Poetry you know I have a high notion of my judgment in it.
Well, I was at Boulge all the summer: came up thence five weeks ago: stayed three weeks with my mother at Richmond; a week in London: and now am come here to try and finish a money bargain with some lawyers which you heard me beginning a year ago. They utterly failed in any part of the transaction except bringing me in a large bill for service unperformed. However, we are now upon another tack. . . .
In a week I go to London, where I hope to see Alfred. Oddly enough, I had a note from him this very day on which I receive yours: he has, he tells me, taken chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Moxon told me he was about to publish another edition of his Princess, with interludes added between the parts: and also that he was about to print, but (I think) not to publish, those Elegiacs on Hallam. I saw poor old Thackeray in London: getting very slowly better of a bilious fever that had almost killed him. Some one told me that he was gone or going to the Water Doctor at Malvern. People in general thought Pendennis got dull as it got on; and I confess I thought so too: he would do well to take the opportunity
of his illness to discontinue it altogether. He told me last June he himself was tired of it: must not his readers naturally tire too? Do you see Dickens’ David Copperfield? It is very good, I think: more carefully written than his later works. But the melodramatic parts, as usual, bad. Carlyle says he is a showman whom one gives a shilling to once a month to see his raree-show, and then sends him about his business.
I have been obliged to turn Author on the very smallest scale. My old friend Bernard Barton chose to die in the early part of this year. . . . We have made a Book out of his Letters and Poems, and published it by subscription . . . and I have been obliged to contribute a little dapper [251] Memoir, as well as to select bits of Letters, bits of Poems, etc. All that was wanted is accomplished: many people subscribed. Some of B. B.’s letters are pleasant, I think, and when you come to England I will give you this little book of incredibly small value. I have heard no music but two concerts at Jullien’s a fortnight ago; very dull, I thought: no beautiful new Waltzes and Polkas which I love. It is a strange thing to go to the Casinos and see the coarse whores and apprentices in bespattered morning dresses, pea-jackets, and bonnets, twirl round clumsily and indecently to the divine airs played in the Gallery; ‘the music yearning like a God in pain’ indeed. I should like to hear
some of your Florentine Concerts; and I do wish you to believe that I do constantly wish myself with you: that, if I ever went anywhere, I would assuredly go to visit the Villa Gondi. I wish you to believe this, which I know to be true, though I am probably further than ever from accomplishing my desire. Farewell: I shall hope to find out your Consul and your portrait in London: though you do not give me very good directions where I am to find them. And I will let you know soon whether I have found the portrait, and how I like it.
To John Allen.
Bedford, Dec. 13/49.
My dear old Allen,
. . . I am glad you like the Book. [252a] You are partly right as to what I say about the Poems. For though I really do think some of the Poems very pretty, yet I think they belong to a class which the world no longer wants. Notwithstanding this, one is sure the world will not be the worse for them: they are a kind of elder Nursery rhymes; pleasing to younger people of good affections. [252b] The