"And now, my dear Sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder vein. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing to believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If, in an unguarded hour----But I will hope better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers,--not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, etc." And a few months after writing the above letter, Lamb contributed to "The London Magazine,"--then in its decadence, but among whose "creaking rafters" Elia fondly lingered, "like the last rat,"--to this (his favorite periodical) he contributed a brief, but beautiful paper, suggested by Fauntleroy's sad story. The article is entitled "The Last Peach," and purports to be written by a bank-officer (possibly the author had Barton in his mind while writing it) who fears he may become a second Fauntleroy. The piece contains one or two delightful passages, and is, in fact, full of happy touches and felicitous bits of description. Very charming (to me, at least) is the account of the plucking of the last peach, and very touching is the allusion to the babe Fauntleroy. But good wine (or a good peach) needs no bush; and therefore, without further comment or commendation, I present "The Last Peach" to the appreciative reader. He will find it to be, unless I am a very poor judge of the article, a peach of excellent quality and of a peculiarly fine flavor.