George Darley, another member of the "London" brotherhood, conceived a sincere regard for Clare, and frequently wrote to him. He was author of several dramatic poems, and of numerous works on mathematics, and was besides a candidate for the Professorship of English Literature at the founding of the London University. The following are among the more entertaining of the letters which he addressed to the poet:-- "Friday, March 2 1827, 5, Upper Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place. My dear Clare,-- You see in what a brotherly way I commence my letter: not with the frigid 'Sir' as if I were addressing one of a totally unkindred clay, one of the drossy children of earth, with whom I have no relationship and feel I could never have any familiarity. Have you ever felt that the presence of a man without feeling made you a fool? I am always dumb, or pusillanimous or (if I speak) ridiculous, in the company of such a person. I love a reasoner, and do not by any means wish to be flashing lightning, cloud-riding, or playing with stars. But a marble-hearted companion, who, if you should by chance give way to an impetuous fancy, or an extravagant imagination, looks at you with a dead fish's eye, and asks you to write the name under your picture--I would as soon ride in a post chaise with a lunatic, or sleep with a corse. Never let me see the sign of such a man over an alehouse! It would fright me away sooner than the report of a mad dog or a scolding landlady. I would as soon enter the house if it hung out a pestle and mortar. The fear of a drug in my posset would not repel me so inevitably as the horror with which I should contemplate the frost-bitten face of a portrait such as I have described. But perhaps with all your feeling you will think my heart somewhat less sound than a ripe medlar, if it be so unhealthily sensitive as what I have said appears to indicate. There is, I grant, as in all other things, a mean which ought to be observed. Recollect, however, I am not an Englishman [Darley was an Irishman.] I should have answered your letter long since, without waiting for your poems, in order to say something handsome upon them, but have been so occupied with a myriad of affairs that I have scarcely had a moment to sleep in. It is now long, long past midnight, and all is as silent around my habitation as if it were in the midst of a forest, or the plague had depopulated London. After a day's hard labour at mathematical operations and corrections I sit down to write to you these hasty and, I fear, almost unreadable lines. Will you excuse them for the promise of something better when I have more leisure to be point-device? Your opinion of my geometry was very grateful, chiefly as it confirmed my own--that there has been a great deal too much baby-making of the English people by those who pretend to instruct them in science. These persons write upon the Goody-two-shoes plan, and seem to look upon their readers as infants who have not yet done drivelling. To