elligence displayed in it; as a rule it merely leads up with more
or less ingenuity to the inevitable request for money contained in the
postscript. Some of Charles's letters were of a different sort, as the
following example shows:

Yesterday evening I was walking out with a friend of mine
who attends as mathematical pupil Mr. Smythies the second
mathematical master; we went up to Mr. Smythies' house, as
he wanted to speak to him, and he asked us to stop and have
a glass of wine and some figs. He seems as devoted to his
duty as Mr. Mayor, and asked me with a smile of delight,
"Well Dodgson I suppose you're getting well on with your
mathematics?" He is very clever at them, though not equal to
Mr. Mayor, as indeed few men are, Papa excepted.... I have
read the first number of Dickens' new tale, "Davy
Copperfield." It purports to be his life, and begins with
his birth and childhood; it seems a poor plot, but some of
the characters and scenes are good. One of the persons that
amused me was a Mrs. Gummidge, a wretched melancholy person,
who is always crying, happen what will, and whenever the
fire smokes, or other trifling accident occurs, makes the
remark with great bitterness, and many tears, that she is a
"lone lorn creetur, and everything goes contrairy with her."
I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay's
"England" to read. I have seen it however and one passage
struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to
the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who
was one of the seven) and asked him "whether he or any of
his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?" He
replied, after a moment's thought "I am fully persuaded your
majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as
innocent in the matter as myself." This was certainly no
actual lie, but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very
little different from one.

The Mr. Mayor who is mentioned in this letter formed a very high
opinion of his pupil's ability, for in 1848 he wrote to Archdeacon
Dodgson: "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came
to Rugby."

Dr. Tait speaks no less warmly:--

My dear Sir,--I must not allow your son to leave school
without expressing to you the very high opinion I entertain
of him. I fully coincide in Mr. Cotton's estimate both of