ime on earth you were not more than commonly curious
as to what was said by 'the herd of mankind,' if I may quote your own
phrase. It was that of one who loved his fellow-men, but did not in
his less enthusiastic moments overestimate their virtues and their
discretion. Removed so far away from our hubbub, and that world where,
as you say, we 'pursue our serious folly as of old,' you are, one may
guess, but moderately concerned about the fate of your writings and your
reputation. As to the first, you have somewhere said, in one of your
letters, that the final judgment on your merits as a poet is in the
hands of posterity, and that you fear the verdict will be 'Guilty,'
and the sentence 'Death.' Such apprehensions cannot have been fixed or
frequent in the mind of one whose genius burned always with a clearer
and steadier flame to the last. The jury of which you spoke has met: a
mixed jury and a merciful. The verdict is 'Well done,' and the sentence
Immortality of Fame. There have been, there are, dissenters; yet
probably they will be less and less heard as the years go on.

One judge, or juryman, has made up his mind that prose was your true
province, and that your letters will outlive your lays. I know not
whether it was the same or an equally well-inspired critic, who spoke
of your most perfect lyrics (so Beau Brummell spoke of his ill-tied
cravats) as 'a gallery of your failures.' But the general voice does not
echo these utterances of a too subtle intellect. At a famous University
(not your own) once existed a band of men known as 'The Trinity
Sniffers.' Perhaps the spirit of the sniffer may still inspire some of
the jurors who from time to time make themselves heard in your case.
The 'Quarterly Review', I fear, is still unreconciled. It regards your
attempts as tainted by the spirit of 'The Liberal Movement in English
Literature;' and it is impossible, alas! to maintain with any success
that you were a Throne and Altar Tory. At Oxford you are forgiven; and
the old rooms where you let the oysters burn (was not your founder,
King Alfred, once guilty of similar negligence?) are now shown to pious
pilgrims.

But Conservatives, 't is rumoured, are still averse to your opinions,
and are believed to prefer to yours the works of the Reverend Mr. Keble,
and, indeed, of the clergy in general. But, in spite of all this, your
poems, like the affections of the true lovers in Theocritus, are still
'in the mouths of all, and chief