Bradbury and Evans,
certain Readings of Poetry, old and new, which will, I suppose, form
two or three separate volumes when collected, buried as they now are
amongst all the trash and crochet-work and millinery. They will be
quite as good as MS., and, indeed, every paper will be enlarged and
above as many again added. One pleasure will be the doing what
justice I can to certain American poets,--Mr. Whittier, for
instance, whose "Massachusetts to Virginia" is amongst the finest
things ever written. I gave one copy to a most intelligent Quaker
lady, and have another in the house at this moment for Mrs. Walter,
widow and mother of the two John Walters, father and son, so well
known as proprietors of the Times. I shall cause my book to be
immediately forwarded to you, but I don't think it will be ready for
a twelvemonth. There is a good deal in it of my own prose, and it
takes a wider range than usual of poetry, including much that has
never appeared in any of the specimen books. Of course, dear friend,
this is strictly between you and me, because it would greatly damage
the work to have the few fragments that have appeared as yet brought
forward without revision and completion in their present detached
and crude form.
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