quite. A young lady wishes for my photograph and some original verses, and doesn't even trust me with her initials. I am to write to Blue Belle, Post Office, Shrewsbury. Ventrebleu! Mademoiselle Blue Belle, were we not worthy of a lady's confidence? Frank Clotton-sends me a brace of pheasants. I remember, they were bad, and Mrs. Epicurus had to pay threeand-ninepence carriage, and nobody had any change, and it was ten at night and rainy, altogether disagreeable-Frank should frank his game, and send it sweet, besides-well reminded-he has got my Macaulay, and dare say thinks I mean to let him keep it. I abuse and disabuse Cloten (as we call him) per first post. Mr. Poppifer Yawney-has the pleasure to send pamphlet on the True Equivalent of Fictitious Currency,' and hopes that in any or all of the numerous publications with which I have influence-wants to be puffed against the next election—saw his pamphlet in the waste basket first. There's a blaze, wo-ho! Mrs. Montgomery Tadd-eh, by Jove ! Mrs. Tadd I've acted bad and likewise rude, the which is sad. Never opened that woman's packet of manuscript novels, which she asked me to read, revise, and get published, and what makes it all the worse, I never heard of her before in all my life. Wonder where it is. Whose fault shall I say it was? Eight months. Think I'll say nothing about it— perhaps she's dead. Another lady. Wife of the

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Reverend Timothy Tode asks for subscription towards building her adored husband a new house amid a flock where his labours are so blessed-writes without his knowledge-highly improper in a wife-am I sure I felt so at the time, and did not help Timothy ? Mr. Cramper, bootmaker, thinks I must have forgotten that his bill for the Alpine boots has been sent in, and having a large account to make up on Tuesday-why is it always Tuesday? But I paid him, and hope I have not lost the receipt, for the boots were not worth paying for once, let alone twice. See to this. H. A. P. Who's that? Nine sides. Ah, I ought to have burned this. Harry Pepperpot, with a statement why he cannot, in justice to himself and his comforts, live with his wife any longer, and why I ought to go and explain that little circumstance to her. Since that, he has made it up with Mrs. Pepperpot and quarrelled with me. Good mind to re-enclose him the letter-but into the fire with it. Mrs. Clarrup Jiggles-asks me to recommend a good school for her boy, where his beautiful genius will not be snubbed -she is sure he is a genius, for he is fifteen, and cannot learn arithmetic. Rather think I enclosed her the last report of the Earlswood Asylum-ought to have. Here's a scrawl. Will I second Young Blatant M'Borum at the Hippopotamus Club? How did I get out of that? How the deuce did I get out of that? What a rich mind I must have, to have been

able to imagine circumstances that prevented me, and to have forgotten what they were! Perhaps I said it was against the rules for a man with red whiskers to second a man with black. I must have told some awful parable. I know I helped to black-ball him. The Secretary of the Aborigines Institute, Ballywhobble, west of Ireland-Institute in debt, would my well-known philanthropy induce me to come over in the winter, and give them a gratis lecture, as full of humour as possible? Could not offer me a bed, but there was a tolerable commercial inn. Didn't go, which explains why my brother's poems were so hideously abused in the Connemara Howler. Miss Matilda Vernonby (dessay her name's Viggins)would like a set of my works, with autograph presentation inscription by their gifted author (that's me), and sends her photograph. Thirty-six, if an hour. Think I told her they were out of print. A long letter, in a small, gentlemanly hand. No right to intrude, but feels certain that a narrative of his troubles will induce me to extend assistance. I felt quite certain that it wouldn't, the less that I had two previous letters from the same troubled party, with different signatures, and greatly varied narratives. I relieved him as a paralysed doctor, and again as an ` artist who had lost his sight, but I could not feel for him a third time, when he appeared as a clergyman who had been ruined by a fugitive banker. Keep

this letter against his fourth Avatar. This is a bold hand-the writer is no beggar. Yes, he is, an impudent beggar. Signs himself Aristarchus, and says that he has read my writings with a disgust he cannot describe (who asked him?), and that he has no doubt that in my black heart I find echoes of all the sentiments of my objectionable characters. Very well, that's no business of his'n. A pink note. Ah! that was a sell, a cruel sell. The handwriting so pretty, and all so dainty, and I thought-of course if it had been so I should have answered her in a fatherly manner, and sent her 'Dr. Gregory's Legacy to his Daughters'-but it was an invitation to examine the enclosed list of prices of coals at the Slaterubble Colliery. 'Hang her, foul collier!' Such tricks, however, defeat themselves, for I would sooner burn blue-books and missionary reports all the evening than coals advertised so treacherously. Hm! wheels.