Yours of 15th rec'd 2—J[ohn] B[urroughs] had written to me for the letter—he heard of it from Dowden himself)—Yes I too think D's words "sweet and beautiful"—I read yesterday the Dec. "Nineteenth Century" article (Josiah Child, of Trübner's, mailed me in sheets)—& like it much—You may not, on acct of the author's John Bull reservations, but I think it decidedly the best English (or any foreign) criticism yet printed. I will send you a copy (of the cheap N Y reprint) in two or three days—it was not ready last night—
William, as you are going to collect the "Tribune" letters, &c.3 I suggest that you ask Dr Bucke to give up the "Good Gray," & you include it—make a cluster of all you have written (Have you the "Times" article you furnish'd Raymond Dec: 1866?4 I have a copy, & can send you)—I think it would be just as well for you to so include, as Dr B has enough otherways—I hope you will like the idea—shall I ask Dr. B to give it up? there is something to me quite preferable in these collectanea at first hand for a life, affair, even history, out of which the modern intelligent reader, (a new race unknown before our time) can take and adapt & shape for him or herself—I send you the "Critic" with my piece on Burns5—
Cold, cold—but very bright & sunny here to-day—I am well as usual—Wonder how the Heywood trial will eventuate—Somehow I feel clear that however it goes, we will "pluck the flower" &c &c from that however—So you must not feel anxious a bit—T W H Rolleston at Dresden, Saxony (with one or two German scholars) is translating L of G. into full German version6—expecting it to be ready next spring—He is an Irish gentleman, a college man, about 30 I think, married, & I suppose of some fortune—What I know of him (by quite considerable correspondence) I like much.
Merry Christmas— W W