What I wrote of "the Horticultural fête" was altered into "the Horticultural fate," as if there was a destiny affecting all the entertainments of that society. When the late Mr. Canning offered Lord F. the office of "Secretary of State," the public were led by a mere transposition of the letters, to believe that a new office was to be instituted under the title of "Secretary of Taste;" and what gave the more effect to this mistake was the noble lord's admitted fitness for the latter office. I once ventured to bear my humble testimony to the assiduous attendance of a certain reverend dean on the "Minster," but had the mortification to find myself insinuating blame against the worthy divine, for his assiduous attendance on the "Minister;" and what was still worse, having to communicate the deserved elevation of "Doctor Jebb" to an Irish mitre, I was made to announce that "Doctor Jobb" was to be the new Irish Bishop. I remember reporting the case of a poor French lady, who "appeared at Bow Street with her pug-dog in her arms," but the printer most ungallantly stated the fair stranger to have appeared "with a pig in her arms;" and on the next day of her attendance a vast crowd had assembled to look at this extraordinary pet, and the poor Frenchwoman narrowly escaped being pelted for disappointing their expectations. In something the same way, a respectable tradesman in Oxford Street has had his shop-windows broken, to the loss of near ten pounds, because, having invited the public to inspect his extensive assortment of a fine manufacture called "linos," the printer chose "to invite the public to inspect a large assortment of the finest lions." I am, sir, a warm friend of his Majesty's Government (for the time being), and cannot but deeply feel that even my political views are sometimes distorted. Amongst the benefits to be expected from recent measures in Ireland, I had enumerated the "increase of tillage,"--this was changed into increase of "pillage," and copied into all the ultra-Tory papers; and when I said that these same measures of conciliation would induce every loyal and well-disposed subject to unite "in quieting Ireland," it was perverted into a sneer, as if all loyal and well-disposed subjects should unite "in quitting Ireland." Pray, sir, do me the justice to lay this explanatory letter before the public; above all, let it be correctly printed. I am, sir, your humble servant, A COURT REPORTER. We very often suffer in a similar manner. About two years since, we represented Mr. Peel as having joined a party of "fiends" in Hampshire for the purpose of shooting "peasants;" and only last week, in a Scotch paper, we saw it gravely stated that a "surgeon" was taken alive in the river, and sold to the inhabitants at 6d. and 10d. per lb. THE VISIT TO WRIGGLESWORTH[63]