said some of the wittiest things which we have heard since Voltaire’s pour encourager les autres.  I saw him in his chamber, a feeble old man, but noble to look upon in all “the monumental pomp of age.”  He came very near belonging to the little group I have mentioned as my coevals, but was a year after us.  Gentle, dignified, kindly in his address as if I had been his schoolmate, he left a very charming impression.  He gave me several mementoes of my visit, among them a beautiful engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, representing him as one of the handsomest of men.  Dr. Thompson looked as if he could not be very long for this world, but his death, a few weeks after my visit, was a painful surprise to me.  I had been just in time to see “the last of the great men” at Cambridge, as my correspondent calls him, and I was very grateful that I could store this memory among the hoarded treasures I have been laying by for such possible extra stretch of time as may be allowed me.

My second visit to Cambridge will be spoken of in due season.

While I was visiting Mr. Gosse at Cambridge, A——­ was not idle.  On Saturday she went to Lambeth, where she had the pleasure and honor of shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury in his study, and of looking about the palace with Mrs. Benson.  On Sunday she went to the Abbey, and heard “a broad and liberal sermon” from Archdeacon Farrar.  Our young lady-secretary stayed and dined with her, and after dinner sang to her.  “A peaceful, happy Sunday,” A——­ says in her diary,—­not less peaceful, I suspect, for my being away, as my callers must have got many a “not at ’ome” from young Robert of the multitudinous buttons.

On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of pleasure.  Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having eight seats, at the representation of “Carmen.”  We invited the Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with us.  The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and sang well, and the evening went off very happily.  After the performance we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where we were the special guests.  The manager toasted me, and I said something,—­I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds.

Of all the attentions I received in England, this was, perhaps, the least to be anticipated or dreamed of.  To be feted and toasted and to make a speech in Drury Lane Theatre would not have entered into my flightiest conceptions, if I had made out a programme beforehand.  It is a singularly gratifying recollection.  Drury Lane Theatre is so full of associations with literature, with the great actors and actresses of