This morning I had a letter from Miss Martineau and really read it to the end without thinking it too long, which is extraordinary for me just now, and scarcely ordinary in the letter, and indeed it is a delightful letter, as letters go, which are not yours!  You shall take it with you on Saturday to read, and you shall see that it is worth reading, and interesting for Wordsworth’s sake and her own.  Mr. Kenyon has it now, because he presses on to have her letters, and I should not like to tell him that you had it first from me....  Also Saturday will be time enough.

Oh—­poor Mr. Horne! shall I tell you some of his offences?  That he desires to be called at four in the morning, and does not get up till eight.  That he pours libations on his bare head out of the water-glasses at great dinners.  That being in the midst of sportsmen—­rural aristocrats—­lords of soil—­and all talking learnedly of pointers’ noses and spaniels’ ears; he has exclaimed aloud in a mocking paraphrase—­’If I were to hold up a horse by the tail.’  The wit is certainly doubtful!—­That being asked to dinner on Tuesday, he will go on Wednesday instead.—­That he throws himself at full length with a gesture approaching to a ‘summerset’ on satin sofas.  That he giggles.  That he only thinks he can talk.  That his ignorance on all subjects is astounding.  That he never read the old ballads, nor saw Percy’s collection.  That he asked who wrote ’Drink to me only with thine eyes.’  That after making himself ridiculous in attempting to speak at a public meeting, he said to a compassionate friend ’I got very well out of that.’  That, in writing his work on Napoleon, he employed a man to study the subject for him.  That he cares for nobody’s poetry or fame except his own, and considers Tennyson chiefly illustrious as being his contemporary.  That, as to politics, he doesn’t care ‘which side.’  That he is always talking of ‘my shares,’ ‘my income,’ as if he were a Kilmansegg.  Lastly (and understand, this is my ‘lastly’ and not Miss Mitford’s, who is far from being out of breath so soon) that he has a mania for heiresses—­that he has gone out at half past five and ‘proposed’ to Miss M or N with fifty thousand pounds, and being rejected (as the lady thought fit to report herself) came back to tea and the same evening ‘fell in love’ with Miss O or P ... with forty thousand—­went away for a few months, and upon his next visit, did as much to a Miss Q or W, on the promise of four blood horses—­has a prospect now of a Miss R or S—­with hounds, perhaps.

Too, too bad—­isn’t it?  I would repeat none of it except to you—­and as to the worst part, the last, why some may be coincidence, and some, exaggeration, for I have not the least doubt that every now and then a fine poetical compliment was turned into a serious thing by the listener, and then the poor poet had critics as well as listeners all round him.  Also, he rather ‘wears his heart on his sleeve,’ there is no denying—­and