"Then I feel sure you speak justly of Thackeray's lecture. You do well to set aside odious comparisons, and to wax impatient of that trite twaddle about 'nothing newness'--a jargon which simply proves, in those who habitually use it, a coarse and feeble faculty of appreciation; an inability to discern the relative value of ORIGINALITY and NOVELTY; a lack of that refined perception which, dispensing with the stimulus of an ever-new subject, can derive sufficiency of pleasure from freshness of treatment. To such critics, the prime of a summer morning would bring no delight; wholly occupied with railing at their cook for not having provided a novel and piquant breakfast-dish, they would remain insensible to such influences as lie in sunrise, dew, and breeze: therein would be 'nothing new.' "Is it Mr. ----'s family experience which has influenced your feelings about the Catholics? I own, I cannot be sorry for this commencing change. Good people--VERY good people--I doubt not, there are amongst the Romanists, but the system is not one which would have such sympathy as YOURS. Look at Popery taking off the mask in Naples! "I have read the 'Saints' Tragedy.' As a 'work of art' it seems to me far superior to either 'Alton Locke' or 'Yeast.' Faulty it may be, crude and unequal, yet there are portions where some of the deep chords of human nature are swept with a hand which is strong even while it falters. We see throughout (I THINK) that Elizabeth has not, and never had, a mind perfectly sane. From the time that she was what she herself, in the exaggeration of her humility, calls 'an idiot girl,' to the hour when she lay moaning in visions on her dying bed, a slight craze runs through her whole existence. This is good: this is true. A sound mind, a healthy intellect, would have dashed the priest-power to the wall; would have defended her natural affections from his grasp, as a lioness defends her young; would have been as true to husband and children, as your leal-hearted little Maggie was to her Frank. Only a mind weak with some fatal flaw COULD have been influenced as was this poor saint's. But what anguish what struggles! Seldom do I cry over books; but here, my eyes rained as I read. When Elizabeth turns her face to the wall--I stopped--there needed no more. "Deep truths are touched on in this tragedy--touched on, not fully elicited; truths that stir a peculiar pity--a compassion hot with wrath, and bitter with pain. This is no poet's dream: we know that such things HAVE been done; that minds HAVE been thus subjugated, and lives thus laid waste. "Remember me kindly and respectfully to Mr. Gaskell, and though I have not seen Marianne, I must beg to include her in the love I send the others. Could you manage to convey a small kiss to that dear, but dangerous little person, Julia? She surreptitiously possessed herself of a minute fraction of my heart, which has been missing, ever since I saw her.--Believe me, sincerely and affectionately yours,