TO MR. BLACKWOOD.
I shall thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to say a kind word of Miss Mitford, and I have now got the books, and will send you an article, I daresay, within a week. But ‘Atherton’ is really and truly a new story, as avouched by Miss Mitford herself in her preface, and by a most confidential friend of hers, to whom I referred. She has long meditated writing it, and has had it, name and all, in her mind for many years; but this past winter has produced the story written in great pain and weakness, a sort of last effort, as it seems,...The Professor’s death must leave a wonderful blank in Edinburgh, but he has had a longer day and reign than falls to the lot of most.