"Sing! as the river sings,
When gently it flows between soft banks of flowers,
And the bee murmurs, and the cuckoo brings
His faint May music, 'tween the golden showers.
"Sing! O divinest tone!
I sink beneath some wizard's charming wand;
I yield, I move, by soothing breezes blown,
O'er twilight shores, into the Dreaming Land!
"I read the above to you when you were in London. It will appear in an Annual edited by Miss Power (Lady Blessington's niece).
"Friday Morning.
"The wind blowing down the chimney; the rain sprinkling my windows. The English Apollo hides his head—you can scarcely see him on the 'misty mountain-tops' (those brick ones which you remember in Portland Place).
"My friend Thackeray is gone to America, and I hope is, by this time, in the United States. He goes to New York, and afterward I suppose (but I don't know) to Boston and Philadelphia. Have you seen Esmond? There are parts of it charmingly written. His pathos is to me very touching. I believe that the best mode of making one's way to a person's head is—through his heart.
"I hope that your literary men will like some of my little prose matters. I know that they will try to like them; but the papers have been written so long, and all, or almost all, written so hastily, that I have my misgivings. However, they must take their chance.
"Had I leisure to complete something that I began two or three years ago, and in which I have written a chapter or two, I should reckon more surely on success; but I shall probably never finish the thing, although I contemplated only one volume.
"(If you cannot read this letter apply to the printer's devil.—Hibernicus.)
"Farewell. All good be with you. My wife desires to be kindly remembered by you.