There are delightful letters from Dicky Doyle here, with the most amusing drawings, one of the present Sir Robert Peel as he made his maiden speech in the House being excellent; and the various descriptions of Hassan’s performances are extremely amusing.  Hassan was a black boy, who had been turned away by his master because he was going blind, and was found by Lady Duff Gordon one night sitting on her doorstep.  She took care of him, and had him cured, and he seems to have been a constant source of delight to every one.  On one occasion, ’when Prince Louis Napoleon (the late Emperor of the French) came in unexpectedly, he gravely said:  “Please, my Lady, I ran out and bought twopenny worth of sprats for the Prince, and for the honour of the house."’ Here is an amusing letter from Mrs. Norton: 

MY DEAR LUCIE,—­We have never thanked you for the red Pots, which no early Christian should be without, and which add that finishing stroke to the splendour of our demesne, which was supposed to depend on a roc’s egg, in less intelligent times.  We have now a warm Pompeian appearance, and the constant contemplation of these classical objects favours the beauty of the facial line; for what can be deduced from the great fact, apparent in all the states of antiquity, that straight noses were the ancient custom, but the logical assumption that the constant habit of turning up the nose at unsightly objects—­such as the National Gallery and other offensive and obtrusive things—­has produced the modern divergence from the true and proper line of profile?  I rejoice to think that we ourselves are exempt.  I attribute this to our love of Pompeian Pots (on account of the beauty and distinction of this Pot’s shape I spell it with a big P), which has kept us straight in a world of crookedness.  The pursuit of profiles under difficulties—­how much more rare than a pursuit of knowledge!  Talk of setting good examples before our children!  Bah! let us set good Pompeian Pots before our children, and when they grow up they will not depart from them.

Lady Duff Gordon’s Letters from the Cape, and her brilliant translation of The Amber Witch, are, of course, well known.  The latter book was, with Lady Wilde’s translation of Sidonia the Sorceress, my favourite romantic reading when a boy.  Her letters from Egypt are wonderfully vivid and picturesque.  Here is an interesting bit of art criticism: 

Sheykh Yoosuf laughed so heartily over a print in an illustrated paper from a picture of Hilton’s of Rebekah at the well, with the old ‘wekeel’ of ‘Sidi Ibraheem’ (Abraham’s chief servant) kneeling before the girl he was sent to fetch, like an old fool without his turban, and Rebekah and the other girls in queer fancy dresses, and the camels with snouts like pigs.  ’If the painter could not go into “Es Sham” to see how the Arab really look,’ said Sheykh Yoosuf, ’why did he not paint a well in England, with girls like