f a valiant, genuine Human Soul: this,
even under rhyme, is a satisfaction worth some struggling for.
But indeed you are very perverse; and through this perplexed
undiaphanous element, you do not fall on me like radiant summer
rainbows, like floods of sunlight, but with thin piercing
radiances which affect me like the light of the _stars._ It is
so: I wish you would become _concrete,_ and write in prose the
straightest way; but under any form I must put up with you;
that is my lot.--Chapman's edition, as you probably know, is very
beautiful. I believe there are enough of ardent silent seekers
in England to buy up this edition from him, and resolutely study
the same: as for the review multitude, they dare not exactly
call it "unintelligible moonshine," and so will probably hold
their tongue. It is my fixed opinion that we are all at sea as
to what is called Poetry, Art, &c., in these times; laboring
under a dreadful incubus of _Tradition,_ and mere "Cant heaped
balefully on us up to the very Zenith," as men, in nearly all
other provinces of their Life, except perhaps the railway
province, do now labor and stagger;--in a word, that Goethe-and-
Schiller's _"Kunst"_ has far more brotherhood with Pusey-and-
Newman's _Shovelhattery,_ and other the like deplorable
phenomena, than it is in the least aware of! I beg you take
warning: I am more serious in this than you suppose. But no,
you will not; you whistle lightly over my prophecies, and go
your own stiff-necked road. Unfortunate man!--

I had read in the Newspapers, and even heard in speech from
Manchester people, that you were certainly coming this very
summer to lecture among us: but now it seems, in your Letter,
all postponed into the vague again. I do not personally know
your Manchester negotiators, but I know in general that they are
men of respectability, insight, and activity; much connected
with the lecturing department, which is a very growing one,
especially in Lancashire, at present;--men likely, for the rest,
to _fulfil_ whatsoever they may become engaged for to you. My
own ignorant though confident guess, moreover, is, that you
would, in all senses of the word, _succeed_ there; I think, also
rather confidently, we could promise you an audience of British
aristocracy in London here,--and of British commonalty all manner
of audiences that you liked to stoop to. I heard an ignorant
blockhead (or mainly so) called --- bow-wowing here, some mo