My clear Dr. Alexander—­Since I had the pleasure of your most agreeable visit, and its accompanying conversation, I have been very unwell and hardly left the house.  You mentioned the reference made by Dean Stanley (?) to the story of the semi-idiot boy and his receiving the communion with such heart-felt reality.  I forgot to mention that, summer before last, two American gentlemen were announced, who talked very pleasantly before I found who they were—­one a Baptist minister at Boston, and the other a professor in a college.  I did not know why they had called at all until the minister let on that he did not like to be in Edinburgh without waiting upon the author of Reminiscences, as the book had much interested him in Scottish life, language and character, before he had been a visitor on the Scottish shores.  “But chiefly,” he added, “I wished to tell you that the day before I sailed I preached in a large store to above two thousand people; that from your book I had to them brought forward the anecdote of the simpleton lad’s deep feeling in seeing the ‘pretty man’ in the communion, and of his being found dead next morning.”  To which he added, in strong American tones, “I pledge myself to you, sir, there was not a dry eye in the whole assembly.”

It is a feature of modern times how anecdotes, sayings, expressions, etc., pass amongst the human race.  I have received from Sir Thomas Biddulph an expression of the Queen’s pleasure at finding pure Scottish anecdotes have been so popular in England.  How fond she is of Scotland!—­With much esteem, I am very truly yours,

     E.B.  RAMSAY.

The Dean was an enthusiastic admirer of Dr. Chalmers, and on the evening of March 4, 1849, he read a memoir of the life and labours of Chalmers at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  That memoir, although it had been to a great extent anticipated by Rev. Dr. Hanna’s fine and copious memoir of his father-in-law, was printed in the Society Transactions, and afterwards went through several editions when issued in a separate volume.

     LORD MEDWTN to DEAN RAMSAY.

     Ainslie Place, Thursday morning

My dear Mr. Ramsay—­I beg to thank you most truly for your very acceptable gift so kindly sent to me yesterday evening.  I had heard with the greatest satisfaction of the admirable sketch you had read to the Royal Society of the public character of the latest of our Scottish worthies—­a very remarkable man in many respects; one whose name must ever stand in the foremost rank of Christian philanthropists; all whose great and various talents and acquirements being devoted with untiring energy to the one great object—­the temporal and eternal benefit of mankind.  What I also greatly admired about him was that all the great adulation he met with never affected his simple-mindedness; his humility was remarkable.  There was the same