I shall make some explanation to him when I next have occasion to write
to him, but that sort of thing would come surely with a better grace
from you than from me. I have not a doubt that he will be a daily
scribbler in your paper ere it is a week old.
To all these people--Croker as well as the rest--John Murray is of much
more importance than they ever can be to him if he will only _believe_
what I _know_, viz. that his own name in _society_ stands miles above
any of theirs. Croker _cannot_ form the nucleus of a literary
association which you have any reason to dread. He is hated by the
higher Tories quite as sincerely as by the Whigs: besides, he has not
_now-a-days_ courage to strike an effective blow; he will not come
forward.
I come to pleasanter matters. Nothing, indeed, can be more handsome,
more generous than Mr. Coleridge's whole behaviour. I beg of you to
express to him the sense I have of the civility with which he has been
pleased to remember and allude to _me_, and assure him that I am most
grateful for the assistance he offers, and accept of it to any extent he
chooses.
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