Herbert Gilchrist has sent me £2 from you, as your annual donation, wh' I rec'd yesterday, & hereby rec't & thank you for. I am still living here, not much different from formerly—in good spirits, & getting along, hearty & fat and red, but clumsy & debilitated more & more.
I think of collecting together my prose & verse of the last five years, & printing a little Vol: under the title of "November Boughs"—also of bringing out a complete budget of all my writing in one book.2 I remember you with much love—
Walt Whitmanwrite, when at leisure & give me the news over there—also your exact address—
Correspondent:
Edward Dowden (1843–1913), professor of
English literature at the University of Dublin, was one of the first to
critically appreciate Whitman's poetry, particularly abroad, and was primarily
responsible for Whitman's popularity among students in Dublin. In July 1871,
Dowden penned a glowing review of Whitman's work in the Westminster Review entitled "The Poetry of Democracy: Walt Whitman," in which Dowden described
Whitman as "a man unlike any of his predecessors. . . . Bard of America, and
Bard of democracy." In 1888, Whitman observed to Traubel: "Dowden is a book-man:
but he is also and more particularly a man-man: I guess that is where we
connect" (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden,
Sunday, June 10, 1888, 299). For more, see Philip W. Leon, "Dowden, Edward (1843–1913)," Walt Whitman: An
Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998).