The arrival of your poem yesterday was about the best thing that has happened since my arrival here. I read it at once twice through, to the very great satisfaction of Hunt & myself. The points that we noted in any way especially I will now proceed to communicate. But first of all we both think that a better title might be found. I dare say you will manage to think of one.

I do not know if you remember that at the beginning of the Eve of St. Mark there are the lines “The city streets were cool and fair,/From wholesome drench of April rains.” This is like the beginning of your poem; and though of course the statement of a fact from observation cannot even be a reminiscence of what has been done before, still I think it is perhaps as well not to have at the very outset a line which some people might manage to draw conclusions from. The expression “fish flapping about” might I think be altered to something newer, and even more strikingly truthful.

The second paragraph is excellent; the third is good. In the speech of Harling (4th p.) I think some little bright detail might still be introduced to increase the force. The 5th is admirable last line especially so. In the 6th the word rustling is rather old, and the last line a trifle common and awkward. In the 7th I see no necessity for second line, which I think makes too much of a trifling point in so serious a poem. Would not “loosed itself and touched along his forehead” &c. be quite sufficient? Both Hunt and I thought you might alter “Something at a window.” It is rather melodramatic perhaps. ”What was at a window” suggested itself to me, but I believe this is too Tennysonian. In the 8th I do not like the position of the man altogether; it seems a little violent. One can fancy some of the Adelphi people doing it. The 9th and llth will do very well; the 10th is first rate. In the 12th, I think (as they had been always in correspondence) that Harling might in some way allude to their letters quite slightly of course, by a word. At present it seems rather abrupt, and at first looks as if they had known nothing whatever of each other for years. In the 13th the “Sir” belongs, as of course you must be aware, to the French school of ultra metaphysics. 14th to 21st all capital. The last line of the 22nd appears to me scarcely in character with Grey. I have something of the same sort in my “Bride Chamber Talk,” but I will have the cheek to say that I think it is there more appropriate to the personage. 23rd excellent. The line composing 24th seems rather common. What do you think of “that his laugh troubled him,” or “It seemed to Harling the laugh was not his.” 25th admirable: perhaps at the end, “I am one” would be more absolutely conversational than “I am such.” 26th capital; 27th first rate; 28th excellent; 29th & 30th very good, except that the lady would be employed in a more feminine and I believe equally natural manner, were she helping the wounded instead of fighting. 31st & 32nd very good; perhaps the last two lines in a little crackjaw. In the 33rd the “divided into oblongs” business reads as trivial. The last line of 34th a little common. 35th very good. Something newer, I think, might be done at the end of 36th. There might be, especially in Grey, a kind of shaking of the jaw and pressing into the clavicle which could be made very fine. 37th excellent 38th remarkably fine. 39th not quite so good. 40th and on as far as the Inquest exceedingly powerful. I think certainly that the piece about the lilac dress and the hair is rather Gallically introduced, and Hunt remarked that the “worn plain” is an expression more likely to be used by a woman than a man.

Now for the Inquest. I do not think that “Disclosures extraordinary” is the newspaper phrase, but “extraordinary disclosures.” If so, I would be careful to alter this, as it may be taken for a poetical inversion. “The worthy Coroner” is a little strong; but I shall not argue this, as no doubt you consider it the hinge of the poem. At “accommodated with a chair,” Hunt suggested “a seat” instead, as being a trifle less comic. “A something trembled at her lips” appears to me, on the other hand, too poetical for evidence. In my copy the line “So she assured that should come to pass” has had some syllable omitted by mistake, I suppose. There is one man in England who will understand the phrase “the living up of her old love”: his name is Alfred Tennyson: if you write for any other Englishman, this must be cut out. “That in the first letter you sent deceased” is rather a harsh line. All the passage about the familiarities looks rather ambiguous. I do not know whether you mean it to be so. In the woman's letter, the “looking strange,” Hunt suggested, might be altered to some impression which she could more clearly realize to herself. I, however, do not feel certain as to this. The Christ business is very good as it is, and the line about the stone has also something appropriate in it. The following adaptation suggested itself to me, as uniting the qualities of both:

Your Inquest is, on the whole I think, a very clever and finished piece of writing wonderfully well managed in parts and possessing some strong points of character. The woman's letter is exceedingly truthful and fine. The rest of the poem is very first rate indeed some passages really stunning. Hunt suggested that “Who ever heard of Dr. Luton yet” would more thoroughly explain Grey's intention, and I fancy he is right. True, Luton is a surgeon, but surgeons are constantly called Doctors by courtesy. I am not certain whether a few additional lines after the last one would not finish the poem more soberly. I will now sum up, with “the worthy Coroner.” I think your poem is very remarkable, and altogether certainly the best thing you have done. It is a painful story, told without compromise, and with very little moral, I believe, beyond commonplaces. Perhaps it is more like Crabbe than any other poet I know of; not lacking no small share of his harsh reality, less healthy, and at times more poetical. I would advise you, if practicable, to show it to any medical man at hand, Dr. Hare for instance. He might discover some absurdity which escapes us, or suggest something of value to the story.

Now for myself. I am ashamed to declare I have nothing yet to offer you in return for your 900 lines but “quelques mechants sonnets”—real humbugs, which it is almost absurd to send, lest they should be taken for a compensation. Moreover one or two of them are sloshy in the rhymes of the first half: I think however I could find authorities among the early Italians.

Here is the one which came into my head on the staircase of Notre Dame, and which I have since remembered, though I fancy with some deterioration.

I forget whether I told you that it was the ringing of the bells as we climbed the staircase which gave me this valuable inspiration.