During this visit,he made one new acquaintance which he much valued;drawn thither,as I guess,by the wish to take counsel about _Strafford_.He writes to his Clifton friend,under date,1st July 1842:"Lockhart,of the _Quarterly Review_,I made my first oral acquaintance with;and found him as neat,clear and cutting a brain as you would expect;but with an amount of knowledge,good nature and liberal anti-bigotry,that would much surprise many.The tone of his children towards him seemed to me decisive of his real kindness.He quite agreed with me as to the threatening seriousness of our present social perplexities,and the necessity and difficulty of doing something effectual for so satisfying the manual multitude as not to overthrow all legal security....
"Of other persons whom I saw in London,"continues he,"there are several that would much interest you,--though I missed Tennyson,by a mere chance....John Mill has completely finished,and sent to the bookseller,his great work on Logic;the labor of many years of a singularly subtle,patient and comprehensive mind.It will be our chief speculative monument of this age.Mill and I could not meet above two or three times;but it was with the openness and freshness of school-boy friends,though our friendship only dates from the manhood of both."He himself was busier than ever;occupied continually with all manner of Poetic interests._Coeur-de-Lion_,a new and more elaborate attempt in the mock-heroic or comico-didactic vein,had been on hand for some time,the scope of it greatly deepening and expanding itself since it first took hold of him;and now,soon after the Naples journey,it rose into shape on the wider plan;shaken up probably by this new excitement,and indebted to Calabria,Palermo and the Mediterranean scenes for much of the vesture it had.With this,which opened higher hopes for him than any of his previous efforts,he was now employing all his time and strength;--and continued to do so,this being the last effort granted him among us.
Already,for some months,_Strafford_lay complete:but how to get it from the stocks;in what method to launch it?The step was questionable.Before going to Italy he had sent me the Manuscript;still loyal and friendly;and willing to hear the worst that could be said of his poetic enterprise.I had to afflict him again,the good brave soul,with the deliberate report that I could _not_accept this Drama as his Picture of the Life of Strafford,or as any _Picture_of that strange Fact.To which he answered,with an honest manfulness,in a tone which is now pathetic enough to me,that he was much grieved yet much obliged,and uncertain how to decide.On the other hand,Mr.
Hare wrote,warmly eulogizing.Lockhart too spoke kindly,though taking some exceptions.It was a questionable case.On the whole,_Strafford_remained,for the present,unlaunched;and _Coeur de-Lion_was getting its first timbers diligently laid down.So passed,in peaceable seclusion,in wholesome employment and endeavor,the autumn and winter of 1842-43.On Christmas-day,he reports to his Mother:--"I wished to write to you yesterday;but was prevented by the important business of preparing a Tree,in the German fashion,for the children.This project answered perfectly,as it did last year;and gave them the greatest pleasure.I wish you and my Father could have been here to see their merry faces.Johnny was in the thick of the fun,and much happier than Lord Anson on capturing the galleon.We are all going on well and quietly,but with nothing very new among us....The last book I have lighted on is Moffat's _Missionary Labors in South Africa_;which is worth reading.There is the best collection of lion stories in it that I have ever seen.But the man is,also,really a very good fellow;and fit for something much better than most lions are.He is very ignorant,and mistaken in some things;but has strong sense and heart;and his Narrative adds another to the many proofs of the enormous power of Christianity on rude minds.Nothing can be more chaotic,that is human at all,than the notions of these poor Blacks,even after what is called their conversion;but the effect is produced.They do adopt pantaloons,and abandon polygamy;and I suppose will soon have newspapers and literary soirees."