Another Year! You will be nearly half through it, by the time you read this.

I was so obliged to you for those extracts from Charles Lamb. I had seen that about the two hemispheres in some newspaper, and have been longing for the book ever since.

‘Boz's Magazine’ is disappointing. I wish he would not mix up his great Pickwick name with meaner works. It is odd how long you were writing about Pickwick, and yet I felt all the time that, though we are no judges of fun in this place, that it must be everywhere the cleverest thing that has appeared in our time. I had laughed twenty times at that book. Then there is always a quotation to be had from Pickwick for everything that occurs anywhere.

That Mr. Q., of — who has been living with us for a month, and who admires Chance, as a clever demon, but is afraid of him, always says, if Chance goes near him at desert:— ‘Bring some cake directly! good old Chance! good little dog! the cake is coming,’ so like Pickwick and his ‘good old horse.’

We returned from Lucknow on Saturday, with no accident but that of breaking the dicky; which, considering the state of the roads, was marvellous. I never felt such jolting, and it was very hot in the middle of the day; and G., who does not believe in fatigue, had asked five-and-twenty people to dinner.