One of the most difficult matters he had to manage while in England was the publication of Miss Bacon’s singular book on Shakespeare.  The poor lady, after he had agreed to see the work through the press, broke off all correspondence with him in a storm of wrath, accusing him of pusillanimity in not avowing full faith in her theory; so that, as he told me, so far as her good-will was concerned, he had not gained much by taking the responsibility of her book upon his shoulders.  It was a heavy weight for him to bear in more senses than one, for he paid out of his own pocket the expenses of publication.

I find in his letters constant references to the kindness with which he was treated in London.  He spoke of Mrs. S.C.  Hall as “one of the best and warmest-hearted women in the world.”  Leigh Hunt, in his way, pleased and satisfied him more than almost any man he had seen in England.  “As for other literary men,” he says in one of his letters, “I doubt whether London can muster so good a dinner-party as that which assembles every month at the marble palace in School Street.”

All sorts of adventures befell him during his stay in Europe, even to that of having his house robbed, and his causing the thieves to be tried and sentenced to transportation.  In the summer-time he travelled about the country in England and pitched his tent wherever fancy prompted.  One autumn afternoon in September he writes to me from Leamington:—­

“I received your letter only this morning, at this cleanest and prettiest of English towns, where we are going to spend a week or two before taking our departure for Paris.  We are acquainted with Leamington already, having resided here two summers ago; and the country round about is unadulterated England, rich in old castles, manor-houses, churches, and thatched cottages, and as green as Paradise itself.  I only wish I had a house here, and that you could come and be my guest in it; but I am a poor wayside vagabond, and only find shelter for a night or so, and then trudge onward again.  My wife and children and myself are familiar with all kinds of lodgement and modes of living, but we have forgotten what home is,—­at least the children have, poor things!  I doubt whether they will ever feel inclined to live long in one place.  The worst of it is, I have outgrown my house in Concord, and feel no inclination to return to it.

    “We spent seven weeks in Manchester, and went most diligently to the
    Art Exhibition; and I really begin to be sensible of the rudiments
    of a taste in pictures.”