How rejoiced I feel in being able to rid myself of all weighty affairs for a few minutes, and sit down to a little private conversation with you. I am going, as usual, to be very silly, and very talkative, and I have so much to say that I hardly know where to begin. Allow me to congratulate you upon the flourishing state of your affairs. There has been a Coronation, and you have had lighting of lamps, and drinking of ale, and breaking of heads, to you heart’s content; and there are two new novels coming from Sir Walter, and the King is going to Ireland, and Mr. Kean is come from America, and--here is No. X. of the _Etonian_! How happy you must be! But you will have to pay an extra shilling for it. I hope you will not be angry. The fact is, that the approaching conclusion of our work has put into our contributors such a spirit of goodwill and exertion, that we found it quite impossible to comprise their benefactions within our usual limits, although I myself gave up to them many of my own pages, and burned several first-rate articles, especially one “On the Digamma,” which would have had a surprising effect. For, to parody the poet, Those write now, who never wrote before, And those who always wrote, now write the more. And you will be satisfied, I think, with the augmentation of bulk and of price, when you consider what you would have lost if such a step had not been adopted. Perhaps you might not have had “The Bride of the Cave;” perhaps you might not have had “The Hall of my Fathers;” perhaps you might not have had--oh, yes! you certainly should have had “Maimoune,” though it had filled our whole number. But you would not have had my “Private Correspondence,” which I should have regretted extremely, although my modesty hints to me that you would not have cared a rush about the matter. I used to promise, you will remember, that in all and in each of our numbers, twenty pages only should be devoted to our foreign correspondents. This resolution was, I believe, rigidly adhered to during the existence of the _Salt-Bearer_; but since his exit I have grown more idle and less scrupulous. In our present number you will find a much greater proportion of matter from the Universities. I tell you so fearlessly, because you are, in no small degree, a gainer by the fraud.