press: full of doubts, troubles, etc. The reviewers
will doubtless be at him: and with justice for many things: but some of
the poems will outlive the reviewers. Trench, Wordsworth, Campbell, and
Taylor, also appear in new volumes this Spring, and Milnes, I hear, talks
of publishing a popular edition of his poems. He means, a cheap one.
Nothing has been heard of Spedding: {114a} but we all conclude, from the
nature of the case, that he has not been scalped.

_To W. F. Pollock_. {114b}

BOULGE HALL, _May_ 11/42.

DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . I have just been reading the great Library of Athanasius. {114c}
Certainly only you and I and Thackeray understand it. When men like
Spedding quote to me such a passage as 'Athanasius alas is innocent of
many smiles, etc.,' they shew me they don't understand it. The beauty--if
one may dare to define--lies more in such expressions as 'adjusting the
beaks of the macaws, etc.' I have laughed outright (how seldom one does
this alone!) at the Bishops' meeting. 'Mr. Talboys--that candle behind
Dr. Allnut--really that I should be obliged--.' I suppose this would be
the most untranslateable book in the world. I never shall forget how I
laughed when I first read it.

[GELDESTONE HALL, 22 _May_ 1842.]

DEAR POLLOCK,

. . . So Alfred is come out. {115a} I agree with you quite about the
skipping-rope, etc. But the bald men {115b} of the Embassy would tell
you otherwise. I should not wonder if the whole theory of the Embassy,
perhaps the discovery of America itself, was involved in that very Poem.
Lord Bacon's, honesty may, I am sure, be found there. Alfred, whatever
he may think, cannot trifle--many are the disputes we have had about his
powers of badinage, compliment, waltzing, etc. His smile is rather a
grim one. I am glad the book is come out, though I grieve for the
insertion of these little things, on which reviewers and dull readers
will fix; so that the right appreciation of the book will be retarded a
dozen years. . . .

The rain will not come and we are burnt up, and in despair. But the
country never looked more delicious than it does. I am as happy here as
possible, though I don't like to boast. I am going to see my friend
Donne in ten days, he is writing the dullest of histories--one of Rome.
What the devil does it signify setting us in these days right as to the
Licinian Rogation, and Livy's myths? Every school-boy knew that Livy
lied; but the main story was cle