From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Esq.
Cambridge, near Boston, America, April 29, 1862.
"I thank you very much for your new work in the vast and flowery fields of Calderon. It is, I think, admirable; and presents the old Spanish dramatist before the English reader in a very attractive light.
"Particularly in the most poetical passages you are excellent; as, for instance, in the fine description of the gerfalcon and the heron in 'El Mayor Encanto'.—11 Jor.
"Your previous volumes I have long possessed and highly prized; and I hope you mean to add more and more, so as to make the translation as nearly complete as a single life will permit. It seems rather appalling to undertake the whole of so voluminous a writer. Nevertheless, I hope you will do it. Having proved that you can, perhaps you ought to do it. This may be your appointed work. It is a noble one.
"With much regard, I am, etc.,
"Henry W. Longfellow.
"Denis Florence Mac-Carthy, Esq.".