a very bad
sign of the times. The general mind seems weary of debates and
honourable members, and to have taken _laissez-aller_ for its motto.

My affairs domestic (which I know are not without their interest for
you) flow peacefully. My eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads
the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister
and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached. Charley, my
eldest boy, remains in Barings' house. Your present correspondent is
more popular than he ever has been. I rather think that the readings in
the country have opened up a new public who were outside before; but
however that may be, his books have a wider range than they ever had,
and his public welcomes are prodigious. Said correspondent is at present
overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in America. Will never go,
unless a small fortune be first paid down in money on this side of the
Atlantic. Stated the figure of such payment, between ourselves, only
yesterday. Expects to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go
for less. You don't say, my dear Cerjat, when you are coming to England!
Somehow I feel that this marriage ought to bring you over, though I
don't know why. You shall have a bed here and a bed at Gad's Hill, and
we will go and see strange sights together. When I was in Ireland, I
ordered the brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. It has just this
minute arrived per steamer from Belfast. Say you are coming, and you
shall be the first man turned over by it; somebody must be (for my
daughter Mary drives anything that can be harnessed, and I know of no
English horse that would understand a jaunting-car coming down a Kentish
hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. They turned the
basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road--Mary and the other
two--and had to get it up again; which they did, and came home as if
nothing had happened. They send their loves to Mrs. Cerjat, and to you,
and to all, and particularly to the dear _fiancee_. So do I, with all my
heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate friend.

[Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday Night, March 14th, 1859._

MY DEAR PANIZZI,

If you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or should see no objection
to mentioning, to Signor Poerio, or any of the wronged Neapolitan
gentlemen to whom it is your happiness and honour to be a friend on
their arrival in this cou