phy from your pen bring forth again some great, half-
obscured soul to act on the world? Even Sir Philip Sidney ought to be
superseded by a still nobler type.

'This must go immediately, to be in time for the bearer, of whose
meeting with you I shall think as the friend of both. May it be
happy!

'Your affectionate

'A. I. N. B.'

One letter more from Lady Byron I give,--the last I received from her:--

LONDON, May 3, 1859.

DEAR FRIEND,--I have found, particularly as to yourself, that, if I
did not answer from the first impulse, all had evaporated. Your
letter came by 'The Niagara,' which brought Fanny Kemble to learn the
loss of her best friend, the Miss F---- whom you saw at my house.

'Her death, after an illness in which she was to the last a minister
of good to others, is a soul-loss to me also; and your remarks are
most appropriate to my feelings. I have been taught, however, to
accept survivorship; even to feel it, in some cases, Heaven's best
blessing.

'I have an intense interest in your new novel. {149} More power in
these few numbers than in any of your former writings, relating, at
least, to my own mind. It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter
and myself attempting to foresee the future of the love-story; being,
for the moment, quite persuaded that James is at sea, and the minister
about to ruin himself. We think that Mary will labour to be in love
with the self-devoted man, under her mother's influence, and from that
hyper-conscientiousness so common with good girls; but we don't wish
her to succeed. Then what is to become of her older lover? Time will
show.

'The lady you desired to introduce to me will be welcomed as of you.
She has been misled with respect to my having any house in Yorkshire
(New Leeds). I am in London now to be of a little use to A----; not
ostensibly, for I can neither go out, nor give parties: but I am the
confidential friend to whom she likes to bring her social gatherings,
as she can see something of the world with others. Age and infirmity
seem to be overlooked in what she calls the harmony between us,--not
perfect agreement of opinion (which I should regret, with almost fifty
years of difference), but the spirit-union: can you say what it is?

'I am i