"  You  advise  me  to  sink  St.  Stephen's,  which  I  do  with  all
my  heart.  If  I  fastened  so  tenaciously  on  the  Imperial  Legis-
lators, Mr.  Mitchel  was  partly  to  blame;  for  he  advised,  from
the  first,  that  I  should  let  the  dead  rest  [postpone  historical  in-
quiries] until  vacation,  and,  as  he  said,  continue  to  manifest '  a
pretty  thorough  contempt  for  their  damned  Parliament.'    I  think

*  To  wit,  Speranzft,  McGee,  Martin  MacDermot,  Mary,  Thomasine,
and  Eva.
AN  EDITOR'S   SOOM.  71

I  hmve  done  so ;  and  now  for  the  '  literary  and  hiatorical '  thiogs
1  mm  to  do.  If,  as  I  imagine,  you  wish  a  sketchy  series  of  letters
«a  the  Insb  department  of  the  Library  of  the  Aluseum,  or  the
NatioDal  Galliiry  and  Westminster  Abbey,  I  think  I  conld  do
it-  Moreover,  I  will  dine  with  you,  if  you  wish  it,  at  the  Boar's
Ht»d  Tavern,  with  Sir  J.iho  Falstaff,  and  attack  the  Tower  of
LoodoD  as  fiercely  aa  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  himself.  Occasionally,
1  might  condescend  to  retura  to  St.  Stephen's,  but  things  of
t«-day  and  yesterday  may  not  be  mixed  together  in  the  same
letter."

He  was  bent  on  writing  a  history  o£  Ireland,  and
also  on  versifying  its  legends  and  traditions  in  chrono-
logical order — a  work  which,  if  efFectually  done,  would
be  «?quiva]eut  to  a  history  in  verse.  But  it  could  only
be  effectually  done,  it  seemed  to  me,  hy  many  men,  and
at  varioos  times,  not  at  all  by  one  man  as  a  species  of
task-work;  and  I  discouraged  the  attempt.
