et
everything pass like Mr. Horne's copies of the American edition of his
work, _sub silentio_. Therefore I must write, and you are to please to
understand that I have not up to this moment received either letter or
book by the packet of October 10 which was charged, according to your
intimation, with so much. I, being quite out of patience and out of
breath with expectation, have repeatedly sent to Mr. Putnam, and he
replies with undisturbed politeness that the ship has come in, and
that his part and lot in her, together with mine, remain at the
disposal of the Custom-house officers, and may remain some time
longer. So you see how it is. I am waiting--simply _waiting_, and it
is better to let you know that I am not forgetting instead.

In the meantime, your kindness will be glad to learn of the prosperity
of my poems in my own country. I am more than satisfied in my most
sanguine hope for them, and a little surprised besides. The critics
have been good to me. 'Blackwood' and 'Tait' have this month both been
generous, and the 'New Monthly' and 'Ainsworth's Magazine' did what
they could. Then I have the 'Examiner' in my favor, and such heads and
hearts as are better and purer than the purely critical, and I am very
glad altogether, and very grateful, and hope to live long enough to
acknowledge, if not to justify, much unexpected kindness. Of course,
some hard criticism is mixed with the liberal sympathy, as you will
see in 'Blackwood,' but some of it I deserve, even in my own eyes; and
all of it I am willing to be patient under. The strange thing is, that
without a single personal friend among these critics, they should have
expended on me so much 'gentillesse,' and this strangeness I feel
very sensitively. Mr. Horne has not returned to England yet, and in a
letter which I received from him some fortnight ago he desired to have
my book sent to him to Germany, just as if he never meant to return to
England again. I answered his sayings, and reiterated, in a way
that would make you smile, my information about your having sent the
American copies to him. I made my _oyez_ very plain and articulate.
He won't say again that he never heard of it--be sure of _that_. Well,
and then Mr. Browning is not in England either, so that whatever you
send for _him_ must await his return from the east or the west or
the south, wherever he is. The new spirit of the age is a wandering
spirit. Mr. Dickens is in Italy. Even Miss Mitford _talks_