[482] We have had some of your young countrymen here lately, who seem to look upon us as a political mine, that is to be wrought for the benefit of the rest of the world: Mr. Strutt,—son of Lord Rayleigh, —Lord Morley, Lord Amberley with his free-spoken wife, Lord Camperdown, Mr. Cowper, Mr. Hollond, and some others, with Miss Sulivan,—a niece of Lord Palmerston, an uncommonly lady-like, cultivated woman. They were all in my library one night together, and I have not seen so intellectual a set of young Englishmen in the United States since Lord Stanley, Denison, Labouchere, and Wharncliffe were here, five-and-twenty years ago. Strutt was senior wrangler at Cambridge a few years since; Morley was about as high at Oxford; and Cowper, Hollond, and Camperdown were evidently men who stood, or meant to stand, on the intellectual qualities . . . . Agassiz and his wife are just about to publish a book—only one volume—on Brazil. You must read it, for it is full of matter, very pleasantly presented. We have just finished it, in what they call an ‘advance copy,’ and the two Annas have enjoyed it as much as I have. Lady Head, I am sure, will like it. But you know how fond we are of Agassiz, and perhaps we like the book overmuch, especially as we have been reading it in an ‘advance copy,’ as such things are called, and so have had nobody to moderate our opinion. We are all well, grandchildren and all; and all who have ever seen you and yours send you affectionate regards. Ever yours,
To Hon. Edward Twisleton.
Boston, March 22, 1868.my dear Twisleton,—Your sad letter1 came at the proper time, and I have desired ever since to answer it, but I have felt that I could not do it without a considerable effort, and so I have kept postponing it under the vain hope that time would make it easier. It does not; such things are not easy at 76-7. I was really attached to Sir Edmund Head; and as the attachment came late in life, and was formed after our tastes and opinions were matured, the idea of its
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1 Sir Edmund Head died very suddenly, of disease of the heart, on the 28th of January, and Mr. Ticknor felt the loss of his friendship deeply. The verses mentioned by Mr. Twisleton, are, he says, ‘by Bland, of the Greek Anthology, which, among others, Bland wrote in reference to himself, under the impression that he should not live long.’ Sir Edmund repeated them, nearly word for word, after an interval of twenty-five years, having only heard them recited once. They are as follows:—
While others set, thy sun shall fall;
Night without eve shall close on thee:
And he who made, with sudden call
Shall bid, and thou shalt cease to be.
So whispers Nature, whispers Sorrow:
And I would greet the things they say,
But for the thought of those whose morrow
Hangs trembling on my little day.
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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