Let us forgive one another our mistakes; and there, an end.

_I_ was wrong in taking for granted that the letter which referred to your review was entrusted to you to dispose of; and you were not right in being in too much haste to condemn a book you disliked to give the due measure of attention to every page of it.
The insurgents being plainly insurgents, you shot one at least of them without trial, as was done in Spain the other day.

True, that even favorable critics have fallen here and there into your very mistake; but is not that mainly attributable to the suggestive power of the 'Athenaeum,' do you not believe so yourself?
'Thais led the way!' And now that we clasp hands again, my dear friend, let me say one word as to the 'argument' of my last poems.

Once, in a kind and generous review of 'Aurora Leigh,' you complained a little of 'new lights.' Now I appeal to you.

Is it not rather _you_ than I, who deal in 'new lights,' if the liberation of a people and the struggle of a nation for existence have ceased in your mind to be the right arguments for poetry?
Observe, I may be wrong or right about Napoleon.