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indeed whether he has ever yet fairly got hold of them, — 
for his life all this while has been in the country, I suppose, 
amid a crowd of guests, and with little leisure for considerate 
reading. Pray tell me how the matter is, when you next 
write. — I wish you farther to address a copy of your Book, 
so soon as you have got it bound, to Lord Ashburton, whose 
address I enclose : if the Book is under half a pound weight, 
it will go by post if you stick sixpence worth of stamps upon 
it ; above a pound and under two, it goes for a shilling’s 
worth. And the Note you write must bear a cover quite 
apart. With many good wishes 
Yoqri s 
T. Carlyle. 
Chelsea, 21 April, 1849. 
My dear Sir, 
It will not, I fear, be of much use to try a] Bookseller 
with the Poems : Poetry of all kinds is a bugbear to the 
Booksellers at present, for there is no kind of Poetry that 
they find the Public will buy. For my own part too, I own, 
I had much rather see a sensible man, like you, put down 
your real thoughts . and convictions in Prose, than occupy 
yourself with fancies and imaginations such as are usually 
dealt with in verse. The time is in deadly earnest ; our 
life itself, in all times, is a most earnest practical matter, 
and only incidentally a sportful or singing or rhyming one: — 
Let S. Bamford continue to tell us in fresh truthful prose 
the things he has learned about Lancashire and the world ; 
that, I must say, would be my verdict too ! 
Lord Lansdowne has hardly come across me again at 
all, — I think only once, — since he commissioned me to bid 
you send your Book. In the huge whirlpool of things 
great and small, which the like of him lives in, he has 
doubtless let the transaction go out of his head ; and had 
