rectifications seeming advisable. But perhaps it will be preferable to wait for Ruskin’s sequel.... On Wednesday I had a letter from Gabriel, enclosing a notice of Hunt,[263] and bidding me to Millais’s to-morrow. Brown, Hunt, and Gabriel, were there; and we are all agreed that Ruskin’s letter will do good. Patmore, at whose instance it was written, thinks we should send Ruskin our thanks; but this seems of doubtful propriety, as it might be interpreted into making interest with a view to his second letter. When that is out, something of the kind suggested would certainly appear right. Millais has had another request (from a Mr. Boddington) for his _Dove in the Ark_, and a particular invitation from the Birmingham Exhibition for him to send it thither. Mr. Combe also (who bought Hunt’s picture of last year) has written to ask the price of the _Valentine and Proteus_, and of Collins’s. A laudatory review of Hunt and Millais appears in _The Guardian_, devoting to them three or four times as much space as to any other artist.... As to abuse, it seems to be in the air, so much does the infection spread among critics in word and print.... A nuisance which has revived within these three days is the buried _Germ_; George Tupper having called on me to say that he is winding up its money-matters, and finds himself a clear loser by some £30. Outstanding accounts are of course in requisition; and I find that the copies of Nos. 3 and 4 with which he credits me have so almost entirely disappeared that, what with making good their value (the money-value of _The Germ_!) and paying for the etching-plates which I could scarcely leave Tupper to defray, I have still a pretty sum to fork out; whilst most of the other quondam proprietors have to look up their share of the expenses of Nos. 1 and 2.