me be as young when I am as----did
you think I was going to write "old?" No, sir--withdrawn from the wear
and tear of busy life is my expression.

Poole still holds out at Kentish Town, and says he is dying of solitude.
His memory is astoundingly good. I see him about once in two or three
months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when I
come. Having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to
unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. His three last (he
always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous
magnifying-glass) were as follows:

1. What's croquet?
2. What's an Albert chain?
3. Let me know the state of mind of the Queen.

When I had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to
his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the
enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. After a quarter of an
hour or so, he said: "O yes, I know." And then rose and clasped his
hands above his head, and said: "Thank God, I am not a dram-drinker."

Do think of coming to Gad's in the summer; and do give my love to Mrs.
Macready, and tell her I know she can make you come if she will. Mary
and Georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to Katie, and
to baby. Johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge
elsewhere.

My dearest Macready, ever yours most affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]

GAD'S HILL, _Monday, June 12th, 1865._

MY DEAREST MACREADY,

[_So far in his own writing._]

Many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[15] This is not all in
my own hand, because I am too much shaken to write many notes. Not by
the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was--it did not go
over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by
the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible.

[_The rest in his own writing_.]

Ever your affectionate Friend.

P.S.--My love to Mrs. Macready.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thomas Mitton.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Tuesday, June 13th, 1865._

MY DEAR MITTON,

I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been
quite up to writing.

I was in the only carriage t