167
	      And his Wife.
to like to meet him in the early �Times� days;
believed in him with a good deal of thoroughness
and some simplicity, and respected his judgment.
He was a good literary critic � much better than
the average of the men in that position on the New
York press.    He loved books, then, had a great many
from his office, sent to be reviewed by publishers.
I became acquainted with his firt wife, at near-
ly the same time with himself, though they then
lived apart, he at a hotel, she at Mrs. Leave�s,
Franklin Street boarding-house; where I happen-
ed to be sojourning.   She had the room next to
me and used to whistle, inasmuch that I supposed my
neighbour a man until accident enlightened me.   She
was an ugly woman, with a face indicative of shrew-
ishness and bad passions. She talked very fluently
and approbatively, and claimed to be an authoress,
saying she had written in �Ainsworths Magazine,�
for Dickens� �Household Words� &c., all of which
I subsequently discovered from her husband, 
to be unmitigated lies.        Stoddart, the poet, used
to visit her; Welden was jealous of him, I
fear with reason.x     I don�t know why he and
his wife had parted; he charged her with aban-
doning him, when he lay sick, troubled with a
fistula and she spoke generally against him.
       x No question of it, according to Strong.