ike it. And I particularly commend, my
dear Felton, one Mr. Pecksniff and his daughters to your tender regards.
I have a kind of liking for them myself.

Blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into Cornwall, just after
Longfellow went away! The "we" means Forster, Maclise, Stanfield (the
renowned marine painter), and the Inimitable Boz. We went down into
Devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an open carriage from an
innkeeper, patriotic in all Pickwick matters, and went on with
post-horses. Sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day,
sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock purse, ordered all the dinners,
paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious conversations with the
post-boys, and regulated the pace at which we travelled. Stanfield (an
old sailor) consulted an enormous map on all disputed points of
wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a pocket-compass and other
scientific instruments. The luggage was in Forster's department; and
Maclise, having nothing particular to do, sang songs. Heavens! If you
could have seen the necks of bottles--distracting in their immense
varieties of shape--peering out of the carriage pockets! If you could
have witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment
of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters! If you could have
followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the
strange caverns on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of
mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green
water was roaring, I don't know how many hundred feet below! If you
could have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the
big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had
come and gone, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch (not white, dear
Felton, like that amazing compound I sent you a taste of, but a rich,
genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge broad china
bowl! I never laughed in my life as I did on this journey. It would have
done you good to hear me. I was choking and gasping and bursting the
buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. And Stanfield (who is very
much of your figure and temperament, but fifteen years older) got into
such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on
the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him. Seriously, I do
believe there never was such a trip. And they made such sketches, those
two men,