I thank you, my dear cousin, and did so silently the day before yesterday, when you were kind enough to bring me the review and write the good news in pencil. I should be delighted to see you (this is to certify) notwithstanding the frost; only my voice having suffered, and being the ghost of itself, you might find it difficult to _hear_ me without inconvenience. Which is for _you_ to consider, and not for _me_. And indeed the fog, in addition to the cold, makes it inexpedient for anyone to leave the house except upon business and compulsion. Oh no--we need not mind any scorn which assails Tennyson and _us_ together. There is a dishonor that does honor--and 'this is of it.' I never heard of Barnes.[121] Were you aware that the review you brought was in a newspaper called the 'League,' and laudatory to the utmost extravagance--praising us too for courage in opposing 'war and monopoly'?--the 'corn ships in the offing' being duly named. I have heard that it is probably written by Mr. Cobden himself, who writes for the journal in question, and is an enthusiast in poetry. If I thought so to the point of conviction, _do you know, I should be very much pleased_? You remember that I am a sort of (magna) chartist--only going a little farther! Flush was properly ashamed of himself when he came upstairs again for his most ungrateful, inexplicable conduct towards you; and I lectured him well; and upon asking him to 'promise never to behave ill to you again,' he kissed my hands and wagged his tail most emphatically. It altogether amounted to an oath, I think. The truth is that Flush's nervous system rather than his temper was in fault, and that, in that great cloak, he saw you as in a cloudy mystery. And then, when you stumbled over the bell rope, he thought the world was come to an end. He is not accustomed, you see, to the vicissitudes of life. Try to forgive him and me--for his ingratitude seems to 'strike through' to me; and I am not without remorse. Ever most affectionately yours, E.B.B. I inclose Mr. Chorley's note which you left behind you, but which I did not see until just now. _You_ know that I am not ashamed of '_progress_.' On the contrary, my only hope is in it. But the question is not _there_, nor, I think, for the public, except in cases of ripe, established reputations, as I said before. [Footnote 121: William Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, the first part of whose _Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect_ appeared in 1844.] _To Mr. Westwood_ (On returning some illustrations of Spenser by Mr. Woods) December 11, 1844.