ng a very sweet girl,' says he, 'is a
strong medium.' By Lamartine's desire he took her to the poet's house;
'all the phenomena were reproduced, and everybody present convinced,'
Lamartine himself 'in ecstasies.' Among other spirits came Henry Clay,
who said, 'J'aime Lamartine.' We shall have it in the next volume of
biography. Louis Napoleon gets oracles from the 'raps,' and it is said
that the Czar does the same,--your Emperor, certainly,--and the King of
Holland is allowing the subject to absorb him. 'Dying out! dying out!'
Our accounts from New York are very different, but unbelieving persons
are apt to stop their ears and exclaim, 'We hear nothing now.' On one
occasion the Hebrew Professor at New York was addressed in Hebrew to his
astonishment.

Well, I don't believe, with all my credulity, in poets being perfected
at universities. What can be more absurd than this proposition of
'finishing' Alexander Smith at Oxford or Cambridge? We don't know how to
deal with literary genius in England, certainly. We are apt to treat
poets (when we condescend to treat them at all) as over-masculine papas
do babies; and Monckton Milnes was accused of only touching his in order
to poke out its eyes, for instance. Why not put this new poet in a
public library? There are such situations even among us, and something
of the kind was done for Patmore. The very judgment Tennyson gave of
him, _in the very words_, we had given here--'fancy, not imagination.'
Also, imagery in excess; thought in deficiency. Still, the new poet is a
true poet, and the defects obvious in him may be summed up in _youth_
simply. Let us wait and see. I have read him only in extracts, such as
the reviews give, and such as a friend helped me to by good-natured MS.
It is extraordinary to me that with his amount of development, as far as
I understand it, he has met with so much rapid recognition. Tell me if
you have read 'Queechy,' the American book--novel--by Elizabeth
Wetherell? I think it very clever and characteristic. Mrs. Beecher Stowe
scarcely exceeds it, after all the trumpets. We are about to have a
visit from Mr. Lytton, Sir Edward's only son--only child now. Did I tell
you that he was a poet--yes, and of an unquestionable faculty? I expect
much from him one day, when he shakes himself clear of the poetical
influences of the age, which he will have strength to do presently. He
thinks as well as sees, and that is good....

Oh yes! I like Mr. Kingsley. I am