we had on this head one day, in that renowned oyster-cellar) to resolve the point for me.  You need feel no weighty sense of responsibility, my dear Felton, for whatever you do is sure to please me.  If you see Sumner, take him into our councils.  The only two things to be borne in mind are, first, that if they be published in several quarters, they must be published in all simultaneously; secondly, that I hold them in trust, to put them before the people.

I fear this is imposing a heavy tax upon your friendship; and I don’t fear it the less, by reason of being well assured that it is one you will most readily pay.  I shall be in Montreal about the 11th of May.  Will you write to me there, to the care of the Earl of Mulgrave, and tell me what you have done?

    So much for that.  Bisness first, pleasure artervards, as King
    Richard the Third said ven he stabbed the tother king in the Tower,
    afore he murdered the babbies.

I have long suspected that oysters have a rheumatic tendency.  Their feet are always wet; and so much damp company in a man’s inside cannot contribute to his peace.  But whatever the cause of your indisposition, we are truly grieved and pained to hear of it, and should be more so, but that we hope from your account of that farewell dinner, that you are all right again.  I did receive Longfellow’s note.  Sumner I have not yet heard from; for which reason I am constantly bringing telescopes to bear on the ferryboat, in hopes to see him coming over, accompanied by a modest portmanteau.

To say anything about this wonderful place would be sheer nonsense.  It far exceeds my most sanguine expectations, though the impression on my mind has been, from the first, nothing but beauty and peace.  I haven’t drunk the water.  Bearing in mind your caution, I have devoted myself to beer, whereof there is an exceedingly pretty fall in this house.

One of the noble hearts who sat for the Cheeryble brothers is dead.  If I had been in England, I would certainly have gone into mourning for the loss of such a glorious life.  His brother is not expected to survive him.  I am told that it appears from a memorandum found among the papers of the deceased, that in his lifetime he gave away in charity L600,000, or three millions of dollars!

What do you say to my acting at the Montreal Theatre?  I am an old hand at such matters, and am going to join the officers of the garrison in a public representation for the benefit of a local charity.  We shall have a good house, they say.  I am going to enact one Mr. Snobbington in a funny farce called A Good Night’s Rest.  I shall want a flaxen wig and eyebrows; and my nightly rest is broken by visions of there being no such commodities in Canada.  I wake in the dead of night in a cold perspiration, surrounded by imaginary barbers, all denying the