TO THE REV. C. B. TAYLER.

                                                                      Trin. Coll., 8th July 1853.
                                                                                Evening Post.

MY DEAR FRIEND—Your letter was handed to me by the postman as I was taking a walk after morning  chapel. As I was engaged then, I thought I might wait till the evening. I breakfasted with Macmillan the publishers   who has a man called Alexander Smith with him, who published a volume of poems in the beginning of the year  vhich have been much read here, and, indeed, everywhere, for 3000 copies have been sold already. He is a  designer of patterns for needlework, and he refuses to be made celebrated or to leave his trade. He speaks strong
Glasgow, but without affectation, and is well-informed without the pretence of education, commonly so called.   People would not expect from such a man a book in which the author seems to transfer all his own states of mind   to the objects he sees. But he is young and may get wiser as he gets older. He sees and can tell of the beauty of   things, but he connects them artificially. He may come to prefer the real and natural connection, and after that he
may perhaps stir us all up by bringing before us real human objects of interest he has only dimly seen in the   solitude of his youth.

I told you how I meant to go to Hopkins. He was not in. I had a talk with him on Sunday; he recommended light   work for a while, and afterwards he would give me an opportunity of making up what I had lost by absence.    Yesterday I did a paper of his on the Differential Calculus without fatigue, and as well as usual. Ask George how   Mr. Hughes has arranged about Examinations. I will write to him soon, and send him a mass of papers in an open  packet, to be taken twice a week, or not so often.