“I have examined with great care, and I may add, for the
most part with great approbation, the emendations made by your judicious friend
in the first volume of ‘Tremaine;’ and I have the pleasure to say I concur with him
in almost all his suggestions, corrections, and omissions. I may add that the
latter are fewer than I expected. I do
| 12 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“As to the corrections in language, some of them are indubitably preferable to the passages corrected, and in the greater part of the rest the alteration is so little different from my own taste that I have unhesitatingly adopted almost all that has been proposed.
“I have as little hesitation in saying that the criticism throughout seems most judicious. Of one thing I beg you will assure him, with my compliments, that no excuses whatever were necessary for what he calls ‘liberties;’ and that nothing can be less grounded than his fears of what he pleases to apprehend may be thought impertinent.
“I was rather sorry to part with the two (I own)
ridiculous disputations at the sessions, for they had pleased my fancy; but I
have deferred to his reasons there also. I have, however, not been able to give
up the
| R. PLUMER WARD. | 13 |
“For the same reason I have kept a little of the conversation at the sessions, proposed to be omitted, and also a shortened sketch of the political heart-burnings among country magistrates, which I can myself witness are not unjustly described. I think I have abandoned all the rest, with the exception of a page or two of religious allusions and reflections, by Careless, after the garden conversation; and these I would propose keeping, not so much for the sake of the reflections themselves, as to keep before the reader, or rather to prepare him at all proper opportunities, for what is to form the most important part, indeed the only real and great object, of the work.
“Your friend has struck out a little gipsy scene
introducing the pic-nic dinner; and also much of Vellum and Steward; and I
defer here to his better knowledge of what
| 14 | R. PLUMER WARD. |
“As a general observation upon the criticism, possibly I may think, though perhaps erroneously, that the mind of the critic has been so smoothed by the regular habits does of literary and town society, that he not easily condescend to the rougher manners and characters of remote country life. The author, though immersed from infancy in the world, had a different taste, which must account for several passages in the work which the editor would have left, but for the respect he has conceived for the reviewer.
“Upon the whole, the castigations have only increased my esteem for the powers of your friend, to whose acquaintance, I repeat, I shall be glad if I can ever be introduced.
