1 Beacon Terrace, Torquay: July 8, 1840.

My ever dear Friend,--I must write to you, although it is so very
long, or at least seems so, since you wrote to me. But you say to
Arabel in speaking of me that I '_used_ to care for what is poetical;'
therefore, perhaps you say to yourself sometimes that I _used_ to
care for _you_! I am anxious to vindicate my identity to you, in that
respect above all.

It is a long, dreary time since I wrote to you. I admit the pause on
my own part, while I charge you with another. But _your_ silence has
embraced more pleasantness and less suffering to you than mine has to
me, and I thank God for a prosperity in which my unchangeable regard
for you causes me to share directly....

I have not rallied this summer as soon and well as I did last. I was
very ill early in April at the time of our becoming conscious to our
great affliction--so ill as to believe it utterly improbable, speaking
humanly, that I ever should be any better. I am, however, a very great
deal better, and gain strength by sensible degrees, however slowly,
and do hope for the best--'the best' meaning one sight more of London.
In the meantime I have not yet been able to leave my bed.

To prove to you that I who 'used to care' for poetry do so still, and
that I have not been absolutely idle lately, an 'Athenaeum' shall
be sent to you containing a poem on the subject of the removal of
Napoleon's ashes.[54] It is a fitter subject for you than for me.
Napoleon is no idol of _mine. I_ never made a 'setting sun' of him.
But my physician suggested the subject as a noble one and then there
was something suggestive in the consideration that the 'Bellerophon'