angel. He praised the wealth of hair
which I had given the head, and then said that Mrs. Browning had a
lock of Milton's hair, the only one now in existence. This was
given her by Leigh Hunt, just before his death, who had the records
proving it to be genuine. The hair was, he said, like mine. He
invited me to visit him in Florence, where he would show me the
first edition of Milton's poems, marked to indicate the peculiar
accent which the poet sometimes adopted, a knowledge of which makes
clear somewhat that otherwise seems discordant. Milton was so great
a musician that there could have been no fault in sound in his
compositions. He looked over my books; said my edition of Shelley
was one which he had corrected for the press, not from a knowledge
of the original MS., but from his internal evidence that so it must
have been; said Poe was a wonderful man; spoke of Tennyson in the
warmest terms. Took up a copy of his own poems published in the
United States, and remarked that it was better than the English
edition, yet had some awful blunders, and wished me to allow him to
correct a copy for me. My head of the 'Drowned Girl' caught his eye
and interested him. I told him that I had thought of Hood's 'Bridge
of Sighs.' He then said that Hood wrote that on his deathbed, and
read it to him before any one else had seen it. Hood was doubtful
whether it was worth publishing. To-morrow Mrs. Browning is to
come; she has been quite ill since she came to Rome, and I have
seen her but once. I derive much comfort from the friendship of
Charlotte Cushman. She has just gone from here. She has frequent
breakfast parties; I have attended but one. Mr. and Mrs. James T.
Fields, Wild, the painter, and myself were the guests. Fields I
like much."

The first works of Mr. Akers were two portrait busts, of Longfellow and
of Samuel Appleton. Of his bust of Milton, Hawthorne in the "Marble
Faun" has said:--

"In another style, there was the grand, calm head of Milton, not
copied from any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any
of them, because all known representations of the poet had been
profoundly studied and solved in the artist's mind. The bust over
the tomb in Greyfriar's Church, the original miniatures and
pictures wherever to be found, had mingled each its special tr