London, where it would be the most interesting. Her farther progress can be traced by her letters to the “Tribune,” which have been reprinted by her brother in the volume of her works called “At Home and Abroad.” Over this period I shall pass rapidly, as it is very amply treated in the printed “Memoirs.” She had, of course, that peculiar delight of the cultivated American in London, where, as Willis said, he sees whole shelves of his library walking about in coats and gowns. With her boundless love of knowledge, and the scantiness of libraries and museums in the America of that day, she was charmed by the centralization of London; the concentration in one spot of treasures such as may by and by be found scattered through many cities in America, but will never be brought together in one. She saw the heroes of that day, some of whom are heroes still: Wordsworth, Dr. Chalmers, Andrew Combe, the Howitts, Dr. Southwood Smith, De Quincey, Joanna Baillie. Browning, just married, had gone to Italy. Her descriptions of Carlyle[1] are almost as spicy as Carlyle’s own letters, and she dismisses Lewes in almost as trenchant a manner as that in which Carlyle dismissed Heraud. Best of all for her, she made acquaintance with Mazzini, whom she was soon to meet again in Italy. She was very cordially received, her two volumes of “Miscellanies” having just been favorably reviewed by the English press; she was inundated
- ↑ Memoirs, ii. 184.
