Autograph letter signed : Oxford, to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1844 September 20.

In reference to mentioning her translation of Prometheus Bound in the entry for her in MacKenzie's proposed "Dictionary of Living Authors" (see MA 8917.41-42), writing that it will be enough just to say that she has made translations from the Greek; praising her articles in the Athenæum on Greek Christian poets; discussing the characterizations of her work in the Quarterly Review and A New Spirit of the Age, and arguing that the comparison of it to Caroline Sheridan Norton's poetry is ill-founded: "Morbid feeling, however well expressed, pervades Mrs Norton's poetry. Now yours has a trustful sentiment, arising, I think, from the earnestness of the writer whose conviction that she has a Thunderbolt at command gives an impressiveness to what she says"; commenting on American publishing and American readers: "America is a great audience[.] Every one, almost, has a bookshelf, with a good selection on it. Thousands, far away in the forest solitudes, where a strange face is rather a startling object, find solace & society, after hard labour, in the perusal of their books. A back-woodsman knows more about the modern literature of our common tongue, than many an estated man in England. This is one good, at least, of the piracy-system. The main evil is, exactly as you say, that the American author cannot get salt to his bread, by his pen. Hence, very few of them are all men of letters:--I mean, that with them Literature is rather a means than an end--an episode & not a soul-engrossing pursuit"; describing American poets as essentially derivative; telling her that he knows the poet Lydia Sigourney well, and once told her that to be called "the Hemans of America" (referring to the English poet Felicia Hemans) was not a compliment, rather a reflection on how derivative her work was; discussing literary fame in the two countries: "Here fame is made or marred, too often, by caprice & fashion. America has no petty cliques who can extinguish a poet by not mentioning him or by damning him with faint praise. Not only has every city its critics, but every village also. In the multitude there is wisdom"; adding in the postscript that he thinks he won't ask any more authors for biographical information: "My wife 'wonders how I could do it,' with yourself. I am glad you are better, and hope you will have many years more of authorship."