I thought, after I had written my last, that I ought not to have said anything of an American Publisher of Crabbe, as it might (as it has done) set you on thinking how to provide one for me. I spoke of America, knowing that no one in England would do such a thing, and not knowing if Crabbe were more read in your Country than in his own. Some years ago I got some one to ask Murray if he would publish a Selection from all Crabbe's Poems: as has been done of Wordsworth and others. But Murray (to whom Crabbe's collected Works have always been a loss) would not meddle. . . . You shall one day see my 'Tales of the Hall,' when I can get it decently arranged, and written out (what is to be written), and then you shall judge of what chance it has of success. I want neither any profit, whether of money, or reputation: I only want to have Crabbe read more than he is. Women and young People never will like him, I think: but I believe every thinking man will like him more as he grows older; see if this be not so with yourself and your friends. Your Mother's Recollection of him is, I am sure, the just one: Crabbe never showed himself in Company, unless to a very close and experienced observer: his Company manner was exactly the reverse of his Books: almost, as Moore says, '_doucereux_'; the apologetic politeness of the old School over-done, as by one who was not born to it. But Campbell observed his 'shrewd Vigilance' awake under all his 'politesse,' and John Murray said that Crabbe said uncommon things in so common a way that they escaped recognition. It appears, I think, that he not only said, but wrote, such things: even to such Readers as Mr. Stephen; who can see very little Humour, and no Epigram, in him. I will engage to find plenty of both. I think Mr. Stephen could hardly have read the later Books: viz., Tales of the Hall, and the Posthumous Poems: which, though careless and incomplete, contain Crabbe's most mature Self, I think. Enough of him for the present: and altogether enough, unless I wish to become a 'seccatore' by my repeated, long, letters. . . . Mr. Lowell was good enough to send me his Odes, and I have written to acknowledge them with many thanks and a few observations, not meant to instruct such a Man, but just to show that I had read with Attention, as I did. I think I had much the same to say of them as I said to you: and so I won't say it again. I think it is a mistake to rely on the reading, or recitation, for an Effect which ought to speak for itself in any capable Reader's Head. Tennyson, with the grand Voice he had (I fancy it is somewhat weakened now) could make sonorous music of such a beginning to an Ode as Bury the Great Duke! The Thought is simple and massy enough: but where is a Vowel? Dryden opened better: 'Twas at the royal Feast o'er Persia won.