March 31, 1849.--In the evening to Mr. Brookfield's. Found there Lingen, A. Tennyson; afterwards Thackeray and H. Hallam came. Walked towards Hampstead with A. Tennyson. Conversed on Universities, the 'Princess,' his plans, &c; he very open and friendly: a noble, solid mind, bearing the look of one who had suffered greatly:--strength and sensitiveness blended.

April 2, 1849.--In the afternoon to A. Tennyson's in the Hampstead Road. Long conversation with him; he read me songs to be inserted in the 'Princess,' and poems on A. Hallam, some exquisite.

19th Mr. Palgrave comes. The road is opened. Mr. White & Mr. Joliffe here. Mr. Schreiber, Lady Charlotte, Miss Collyer, Mrs. Fox, Mr. Cotton & his sister in the evening. We play at "Coach" & "Earth, air & water." Mr. Schreiber tells us of the quiet pony he has bought for us. This is their last evening. We could scarcely have had pleasanter neighbours. The boys write their thanks to Mr. Schreiber. We plan about the Coach house & cottages.

22nd A. reads the poems to us chosen by Mr. Palgrave for his "Golden Treasury." I go out with A. to see which trees are to be cut down. A delightful gush of sunshine, when the tree whose shadow trembles on the wall, falls. "Golden Treasury" these evenings.

29th Mr. Palgrave goes. Charles Weld still with us.

For this reason, before we proceed to notice the poems themselves, which will already be in the hands of many of our readers, we may be allowed to say something of the writer; who, known and loved by very many, was not careful to seek, and certainly did not obtain, any very prominent place in the public eye. There needs the less apology for this, because the short "Memoir" which the editor has prefixed to the volume must be called unsatisfactory. Mr Palgrave has done his work no doubt in an affectionate spirit, and we have no wish to speak slightingly of his tribute to the memory of his friend; but assuredly he tells us very little of what we should have liked to know. If it was thought worthwhile to introduce the poems themselves by any personal notice of their author, it was worth while to make it fuller and more intelligible to those many readers who may have hitherto scarcely known him even by name. The editor would have done well to have remembered in this as in another case, that what the public would be glad to have from him was not opinions, but facts; that if the poems he was editing were really worth reprinting in a collected form, there was no need of anything like the puff editorial; and that, on the other hand, if they were not good enough to make an audience for themselves, no amount of admiration on the part of Mr Palgrave would force them upon unwilling readers as genuine inspiration. It would have been better, if possible, to have given us something more of the data upon which Mr Clough's friends formed their estimate of his powers. Did such a man leave behind no literary memoranda or correspondence from which something of this kind could have been gathered. . . . we all naturally desire to know something of the personal history of every man whose genius charms us; and it is somewhat provoking, after reading these twenty-five pages of introductory memoir, to find that we know so much of what Mr Palgrave thinks--so far as it can be gathered from the somewhat cloudy and affected expression of it--and so little of what Mr Clough thought, or said, or did.

Letter to Emily Tennyson, October 1862

                                  Privy Council Office: Oct. 18, 1862.

     Dear Mrs. Tennyson,---A world of work of all kinds, but some of it pleasant
enough, has stayed me hitherto from thanking you for your kind note of good
wishes to me, with Mr. Tennyson's P.S.  It gave great pleasure also to the lady
fair, who has a most earnest wish to be cared for by my friends.
     It seems to me that she has an uncommonly unselfish, unworldly nature, very
careless of wealth and show, and thus I feel hopeful that you may care for her
for her own sake, as I am sure you will for mine.  We think we have found a
house, which, for London, is certainly very airy and pretty, on the edge of the
Regent's park, about five minutes' walk from Welbeck Street.  Thus I hope that
when you and Mr. Tennyson come up, you will have this also to repair to.
     The wise, who look into millstones, inform me that I am to be married about
the middle of December. . . .
    My love to Mr. Tennyson and the children.

                                       Ever very truly yours,
                                               F. T. Palgrave.