to compass again, and for which I am most thankful.  But we have had our own troubles.  K——­ has lost her father.  He was seized with paralysis and knew nobody, so they desired her not to come, and Sam went alone to the funeral.  After all, this is her home, and she has pretty well got over her affliction, and the pony is well again, and strong enough to draw you and me in the spring,—­for I am looking forward to good and happy days again when you shall return to England.

Your magnificent present for Mr. Dillon’s book was quite in time, dear friend.  I had warned them to leave room, and Mr. Holloway and the binders contrived it admirably.  They are most grateful for your kindness, and most gratefully shall I receive the promised volumes.  I have not yet got “the pamphlet,” and am much afraid it is buried in what Miss De Quincey calls her “father’s chaos”; but I have charming letters from her, and am heartily glad that I wrote.  You have the way (like Mr. Bennoch) of making friends still better friends, and bringing together those who, without you, would have had no intercourse.  It is the very finest of all the fine arts.  Tell dear Dr. Holmes that the more I hear of him, the more I feel how inadequate has been all that I have said to express my own feelings; and tell President Sparks that his charming wife ought to have received a long letter from me at the same moment with yourself.  Mr. Hawthorne’s new work will be a real treat.  Tell me if Mr. Bennoch has sent you some stanzas on Ireland, which have more of the very highest qualities of Beranger than I have ever seen in English verse.  We who love him shall have to be very proud of dear Mr. Bennoch.  Tell me, too, if our solution of the line, “A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind,” was the first; and why the new President is at once called General and talked of as a civilian.  The other President goes on nobly, does he not?

    Say everything for me to dear Mr. and Mrs. W——­ and all friends.

    Ever yours, M.R.M.

    Swallowfield, December 14, 1852.

O my very dear friend, how much too kind you are to me, who have nothing to give you in return but affection and gratitude!  Mr. Bennett brought me your beautiful book on Saturday, and you may think how heartily we wished that you had been here also.  But you will come this spring, will you not?  I earnestly hope nothing will come in the way of that happiness.  Before leaving the subject of our good little friend, let me say that, talking over our own best authors and your De Quincey (N.B.  The pamphlet has not arrived yet, I fear it is forever buried in De Quincey’s “chaos"),—­talking of these things, we both agreed that there was another author, probably little known in America, who would be quite worthy of a reprint, William Hazlitt.  Is there any complete edition of his Lectures and Essays?  I should think they would come out well, now that Thackeray