ners with interest and wonder
when I was a very little child, few people can find a greater charm in
that ancient city than I do.

Believe me, yours faithfully and obliged.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] Written by Charles Dickens for a new edition of Miss Adelaide
Procter's Poems, which was published after her death.

[77] Late keeper of printed books at the British Museum, now of Exeter.

1866.

[Sidenote: Mr. Forster.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Friday, 26th January, 1866._

MY DEAR FORSTER,

I most heartily hope that your doleful apprehensions will prove
unfounded. These changes from muggy weather to slight sharp frost, and
back again, touch weak places, as I find by my own foot; but the touch
goes by. May it prove so with you!

Yesterday Captain ----, Captain ----, and Captain ----, dined at Gad's.
They are, all three, naval officers of the highest reputation. ---- is
supposed to be the best sailor in our Service. I said I had been
remarking at home, _a propos_ of the _London_, that I knew of no
shipwreck of a large strong ship (not carrying weight of guns) in the
open sea, and that I could find none such in the shipwreck books. They
all agreed that the unfortunate Captain Martin _must_ have been
unacquainted with the truth as to what can and what can not be done with
a Steamship having rigging and canvas; and that no sailor would dream of
turning a ship's stern to such a gale--_unless his vessel could run
faster than the sea_. ---- said (and the other two confirmed) that the
_London_ was the better for everything that she lost aloft in such a
gale, and that with her head kept to the wind by means of a storm
topsail--which is hoisted from the deck and requires no man to be sent
aloft, and can be set under the worst circumstances--the disaster could
not have occurred. If he had no such sail, he could have improvised it,
even of hammocks and the like. They said that under a Board of Enquiry
into the wreck, any efficient witness must of necessity state this as
the fact, and could not possibly avoid the conclusion that the
seamanship was utterly bad; and as to the force of the wind, for which I
suggested allowance, they all had been in West Indian hurricanes and in
Typhoons, and had put the heads of their ships to the wind under the
most adverse circumstances.

I thought you might be interested in this, as you h