take to be a good subject, for
much the same reason as George Barrington. Their patrons were a class of
men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention
Jackson's rooms in Bond Street) is a piece of social history. Now Vaux
is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER,
_Thursday, April 18th, 1867._

MY DEAR STANNY,

The time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since I last heard
from you through Mrs. Stanfield.

I hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. I have
been almost constantly travelling and reading. England, Ireland, and
Scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and I have had no rest. As soon
as I had finished this kind of work last year, I had to fall to work
upon "All the Year Round" and the Christmas number. I was no sooner quit
of that task, and the Christmas season was but run out to its last day,
when I was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not
yet over. I am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since
Twelfth Night. When a reading in London has been done, I have been
brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been
carried back again. But the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea)
by the middle of May, and then I hope to see you.

Reading at Cheltenham the other day, I saw Macready, who sent his love
to you. His face was much more massive and as it used to be, than when I
saw him previous to his illness. His wife takes admirable care of him,
and is on the happiest terms with his daughter Katie. His boy by the
second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life
than the children you and I remember, who used to come in at dessert and
have each a biscuit and a glass of water, in which last refreshment I
was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity,
"Destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!"

I hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the Academy dinner.
Of course as yet I have had no opportunity of even hearing of what
anyone has done. I have been (in a general way) snowed up for four
months. The locomotive with which I was going to Ireland was dug out of
the snow at midnight, in Wales. Both passages across