I take in it as a great book of art.  Also my dear old friend, Lady Morley (Gibbon’s correspondent), who at the age of eighty-three is caught by new books and is as enthusiastic as a girl, has commissioned me to inquire about your new authoress, the writer of ——­, who she is and all about her.  For my part, I have not finished the book yet, and never shall.  Besides my own utter dislike to its painfulness, its one-sidedness, and its exaggeration, I observe that the sort of popularity which it has obtained in England, and probably in America, is decidedly bad, of the sort which cannot and does not last,—­a cry which is always essentially one-sided and commonly wrong....

    Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours,

    M.R.M.

    October 5, 1852.

DEAREST MR. FIELDS:  You will think that I persecute you, but I find that Mr. Dillon, for whom Mr. Holloway is illustrating my Recollections so splendidly, means to send the volumes to the binder on the 1st of November.  I write therefore to beg, in case of your not having yet sent off the American autographs and portraits, that they may be forwarded direct to Mr. Holloway, 25 Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London.  It is very foolish not to wait until all the materials are collected, but it is meant as an offering to Mrs. Dillon, and I suppose there is some anniversary in the way.  Mr. Dillon is a great lover and preserver of fine engravings; his collection, one of the finest private collections in the world, is estimated at sixty thousand pounds.  He is a friend of dear Mr. Bennoch’s, who, when I told him the compliment that had been paid to my work by a great city man, immediately said it could be nobody but Mr. Dillon.  I have twice seen Mr. Bennoch within the last ten days, once with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thompson, your own Boston artist, whom I liked much, and who gave me the great pleasure of talking of you and of dear Mr. and Mrs. W——­, last time with his own good and charming wife and ——.  Only think of ——­’s saying that Shakespeare, if he had lived now, would have been thought nothing of, and this rather as a compliment to the age than not!  But, if you remember, he printed amended words to the air of “Drink to me only.”  Ah, dear me, I suspect that both William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson will survive him; don’t you?  Nevertheless he is better than might be predicated from that observation.

All my domestic news is bad enough.  My poor pretty pony keeps his bed in the stable, with a violent attack of influenza, and Sam and Fanchon spend three parts of their time in nursing him.  Moreover we have had such rains here that the Lodden has overflowed its banks, and is now covering the water meadows, and almost covering the lower parts of the lanes.  Adieu, dearest friend.

    Ever most faithfully yours, M.R.M.

    Swallowfield, October 13, 1852.