new piece? You have not yet "pronounced" in the
matter of that new French stage of his, on which Calcott for the said
new piece has built up all manner of villages, camps, Versailles
gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off
in any direction. If you tell me that you are to be in town by that
time, I will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day.

With kind regard to Mrs. Stanfield,
Believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate
DICK.

[Sidenote: M. de Cerjat.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
_Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1864._

MY DEAR CERJAT,

Here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome Christmas
letter! But, as usual, when I have done my day's work, I jump up from my
desk and rush into air and exercise, and find letter-writing the most
difficult thing in my daily life.

I hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be strong just now; but
Townshend's account of the premature winter at Lausanne is not
encouraging, and with us here in England all such disorders have been
aggravated this autumn. However, a man of your dignity _must_ have
either asthma or gout, and I hope you have got the better of the two.

In London there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily little
news. At present the apprehension (rather less than it was thought) of a
commercial crisis, and the trial of Mueller next Thursday, are the two
chief sensations. I hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly
a doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting. It is
difficult to conceive any other line of defence than that the
circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight. But a sound judge
will immediately charge the jury that the strength of the circumstances
lies in their being put together, and will thread them together on a
fatal rope.

As to the Church, my friend, I am sick of it. The spectacle presented by
the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the
exemplary unfairness and rancour with which they conduct their
differences, utterly repel me. And the idea of the Protestant
establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out
discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that I wonder
the Right Reverends, Very Reverends, and all other Reverends, who co