jaw of its old fierce form) looking defiantly at Dolby as if Dolby had contradicted him; and then trailed off into a weak pale likeness of himself as if his whole appearance had been some clever optical illusion.

I am away to Scotland on Wednesday next, the 17th, to finish there.  Ireland is already disposed of, and Manchester and Liverpool will follow within six weeks.  “Like lights in a theatre, they are being snuffed out fast,” as Carlyle says of the guillotined in his Revolution.  I suppose I shall be glad when they are all snuffed out.  Anyhow, I think so now.

The N——­s have a very pretty house at Kensington.  He has quite recovered, and is positively getting fat.  I dined with them last Friday at F——­’s, having (marvellous to relate!) a spare day in London.  The warm weather has greatly spared F——­’s bronchitis; but I fear that he is quite unable to bear cold, or even changes of temperature, and that he will suffer exceedingly if east-winds obtain.  One would say they must at last, for it has been blowing a tempest from the south and southwest for weeks and weeks.

The safe arrival of my boy’s ship in Australia has been telegraphed home, but I have not yet heard from him.  His post will be due a week or so hence in London.  My next boy is doing very well, I hope, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.  Of my seafaring boy’s luck in getting a death-vacancy of First Lieutenant, aboard a new ship-of-war on the South American Station, I heard from a friend, a captain in the Navy, when I was at Bath the other day; though we have not yet heard it from himself.  Bath (setting aside remembrances of Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker) looked, I fancied, just as if a cemetery-full of old people had somehow made a successful rise against death, carried the place by assault, and built a city with their gravestones; in which they were trying to look alive, but with very indifferent success.

C——­ is no better, and no worse.  M——­ and G——­ send all manner of loves, and have already represented to me that the red-jacketed post-boys must be turned out for a summer expedition to Canterbury, and that there must be lunches among the cornfields, walks in Cobham Park, and a thousand other expeditions.  Pray give our pretty M——­ to understand that a great deal will be expected of her, and that she will have to look her very best, to look as I have drawn her.  If your Irish people turn up at Gad’s at the same time, as they probably will, they shall be entertained in the yard, with muzzled dogs.  I foresee that they will come over, haymaking and hopping, and will recognize their beautiful vagabonds at a glance.

I wish Reverdy Johnson would dine in private and hold his tongue.  He overdoes the thing.  C——­ is trying to get the Pope to subscribe, and to run over to take the chair at his next dinner, on which occasion Victor Emmanuel is to propose C——­’s health, and may all differences among friends be referred to him.  With much love always, and in high rapture at the thought of seeing you both here,

    Ever your most affectionate