Mary Russell Mitford to Elizabeth Barrett, 7 January 1845: 'It is true that posterity remembers the good; but how often does it happen that the immediate public, looking at the new bad, forgets or is ignorant of the old good! Just this occurred to me in reading Lamartine's dull piece of extravagance, "La Chute d'un Ange." Nothing but your recommendation could have induced me to read another line of his writing. Now, I have gone through "Jocelyn;" and, although I dislike the story -- the heroine in man's clothes, and the hero made a priest, Heaven knows how -- I have yet been delighted with the general feeling and beauty of the poem, particularly with one portion full of toleration, and another about dogs.'