promises the book as a New Year’s gift, 240; advises as to publication, 241; is amused over Briggs’s disposition of anticipated profits, 243; insists upon the freedom of the gift, 244; reports progress, 245; explains origin of passage on bores, 246; finishes the book, 247; gives direction about title-page, 249: his after judgment of the poem, 252; shows his independence in it, 254; and his nature generally, 255; his _Biglow Papers_, 255; wishes he had used a _nom de plume_, 256; gives his views on the political condition which gave rise to the book, 257; his two poems suggested by Garrison and the _Liberator_, 258-260; questions the bad spelling of Hosea, 261; collects the papers into a volume, 262; proposes an external fitness, 263; writes of the success of the book, 264; discloses his personality in it, 265; writes _The Vision of Sir Launfal_, 266; his conception of his poetry, 267; is the poet of June, 269; his whist club, 271; goes to Stockbridge, 272; loses his child Blanche, 273; attempts tragedy, 274; writes to Carter at Pepperell, 274; writes to Briggs of the preparation of a volume of poems, 276; his seclusion, 280; confesses impecuniosity, 281; his effort to help Hawthorne, 283; meditates a magazine, 287; writes to Theodore Parker on contributions to the _Massachusetts Quarterly_, 288; contributes papers to the _North American_, 290; writes to Briggs respecting American society, 296; on current English writers, 297; is described in his home by Miss Bremer, 298; issues his _Poems_ in two volumes, 299; proposes _The Nooning_, 300; his views on his poetic vocation, 302; defends his sister on the Hungarian question, 304; loses his child Rose, 304; and his mother, 305; birth of his child Walter, 305; jests on the boy’s birthday, 306; plans for a year in Europe, 307; sails with his family, 309; describes voyage, 309; halts at Malta, 314; describes his life at Florence, 315; hears of his father’s illness, 316; leaves for Rome, 317; describes arrival in Rome, 318; joins English and American friends, 320; compares Roman with Lombard churches, 321; visits the Campagna, 322; describes his Christmas in Rome, 323; criticises Roman architecture, 327; comments on the people he sees, 328; describes his habit of studying pictures, 330; takes part in private theatricals, 331; writes their grandfather of his children, 334; loses his only son, 338; describes Easter Sunday, 339; his final impressions of Rome, 342; makes an excursion to Subiaco, 343; travels to Naples, 343; is in England, 345; takes passage for America, 345; makes the acquaintance on shipboard of Thackeray and Clough, 346; his opinion of Clough’s “Bothie,” 347; projects a novel, 347; abandons the attempt, 348; begins _Our Own_ for _Putnam’s Monthly_, 351; contributes _A Moosehead Journal_, 353; and _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, 354;