Mr. Mulready, R.A., was commissioned by the authorities to design a postal envelope for general use, a penny stamp affixed insuring free delivery of letters all over England. The design, which should have been of a simple character, was far too ornate and elaborate. At the top Britannia was represented in the act of despatching winged messengers with letters to all parts of the world, and down the sides of the envelope were the recipients of letters which had conveyed heart-breaking news to one side, and good tidings to the other. As a work of art the Mulready envelope has, in my opinion, great merit, but it was ludicrously inappropriate to the purposes for which it was intended. Leech saw and seized the opportunity, with the result appended. The signature of the bottled leech, so familiar afterwards, is used here as Mulready's signature, and "thereby hangs a tale," which, though the burden of it deals with a future time, I venture to introduce in this place. [Illustration] [Illustration: FORES'S COMIC ENVELOPES N^o. 1] My friend Augustus Egg, R.A., who lived in a charming house in Queen's Road, Bayswater, was not only well known as an excellent artist, but also as being the Amphitryon whose hospitality was famous, and whose dinners were still more famous by reason of the guests who were wont to surround his table. Where is the hungry man who would not have been enchanted to meet Dickens and Leech, Mark Lemon and John Forster (Dickens's biographer), Hawkins, Q.C. (now the judge), Landseer, Mulready, Webster, and other artists less famous? Of these dinners I shall have something to say by-and-by; at present I confine myself to one special occasion. It was on one day during the year 1847 that Egg said to me: "You know Mulready better than I do; I wish you would go and get him to fix a day to dine here--any day next week will suit me. Leech wants to meet him; and, somehow or other, though both have dined here frequently, they have never met." "Good," said I; "I will do your bidding." And on the following Sunday I called upon Mulready. "Egg will be pleased if you will dine with him any day next week, sir, that you may be disengaged. He expects the usual set--Dickens, Landseer, Leech, and the rest. You have never met Leech, I think; he is very desirous to make your acquaintance." "Ah, is he? Well, I don't care about knowing Leech." "Really, sir" (it was always the Johnsonian _sir_ to the old gentleman), said I, when I had recovered from my surprise, "may I ask why you won't meet Leech?"