Dear Sir,

Your communication gladdened the cockles of my heart. I lost no time
in presenting myself to Moxon, but no sooner was Mr. Clarke's letter
perused than the Moxonian visage loured exceedingly thereat--the
Moxonian accent grew dolorous thereupon:--'Artevelde' has not paid
expenses by about thirty odd pounds. Tennyson's poetry is 'popular at
Cambridge', and yet of 800 copies which were printed of his last,
some 300 only have gone off: Mr. M. hardly knows whether he shall ever
venture again, &c. &c., and in short begs to decline even inspecting,
&c. &c.

I called on Saunders and Otley at once, and, marvel of marvels, do
really think there is some chance of our coming to decent terms--I shall
know at the beginning of next week, but am not over-sanguine.

You will 'sarve me out'? two words to that; being the man you are, you
must need very little telling from me, of the real feeling I have of
your criticism's worth, and if I have had no more of it, surely I
am hardly to blame, who have in more than one instance bored you
sufficiently: but not a particle of your article has been rejected or
neglected by your observant humble servant, and very proud shall I be
if my new work bear in it the marks of the influence under which it was
undertaken--and if I prove not a fit compeer of the potter in Horace
who anticipated an amphora and produced a porridge-pot. I purposely
keep back the subject until you see my conception of its
capabilities--otherwise you would be planning a vase fit to give the
go-by to Evander's best crockery, which my cantharus would cut but a
sorry figure beside--hardly up to the ansa.