"_19th December_, 1837.

"My DEAR SIR,

"Your courteous gift, with the letter accompanying it, reached me only
about a week ago, though dated 20th of June, almost at the opposite
point of the year. Whether there has been undue delay or not is
unknown to me, but at any rate on my side there ought to be no delay.

"I have read your volume--what little of it was known to me before,
and the much that was not known--I can say, with true pleasure. It
is written, as few volumes in these days are, with fidelity, with
successful care, with insight and conviction as to matter, with
clearness and graceful precision as to manner: in a word, it is the
impress of a mind stored with elegant accomplishments, gifted with
an eye to see, and a heart to understand; a welcome, altogether
recommendable book. More than once I have said to myself and others,
How many parlour firesides are there this winter in England, at which
this volume, could one give credible announcement of its quality,
would be right pleasant company? There are very many, _could_ one give
the announcement: but no such announcement _can_ be given; therefore
the parlour firesides must even put up with ---- or what other stuff
chance shovels in their way, and read, though with malediction all the
time. It is a great pity, but no man can help it. We are now arrived
seemingly pretty near the point when all criticism and proclamation
in matters literary has degenerated into an inane jargon, incredible,
unintelligible, inarticulate as the cawing of choughs and rooks; and
many things in that as in other provinces, are in a state of painful
and rapid transition. A good book has no way of recommending itself
except slowly and as it were accidentally from hand to hand. The man