I am sorry that I cannot come to read to you "The Boots at the Holly Tree Inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that I am tired of reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and hear the birds sing. There are a good many birds, I daresay, in Kensington Palace Gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much better worth listening to than I am. So let them sing to you as hard as ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when the winter comes); and very likely after you and I have eaten our next Christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and I and Uncle Harry may all meet together at St. James's Hall; Uncle Harry to bring you there, to hear the "Boots;" I to receive you there, and read the "Boots;" and you (I hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "Boots." So, God bless you and me, and Uncle Harry, and the "Boots," and long life and happiness to us all! Your affectionate Friend. P.S.--There's a flourish! [Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.] GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, Aug. 13th, 1866._ MY DEAR PROCTER, I have read your biography of Charles Lamb with inexpressible pleasure and interest. I do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a more unaffected and manly tenderness. And as to the force and vigour of the style, if I did not know you I should have made sure that there was a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word "seventy" occupied the place of "forty." Let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your achievement. It is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the memory of such a man. And I venture to add, that the fresh spirit with which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful. Ever affectionately yours. [Sidenote: Sir James Emerson Tennent.] GAD'S HILL, _Monday, Aug. 20th, 1866._ MY DEAR TENNENT, I have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly inclined to believe that the founder of the Refuge for Poor Travellers meant the kind of man to which it refers. Chaucer certainly meant the Pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. After describing the sham reliques he carried, he says: But with these relikes whawne that he found A poure personne dwelling up on lond Upon a day he gat him more monnie Than that the personne got in monthes time, And thus, with fained flattering and japes He made the personne, and the people, his apes. And the worthy Watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very lines in his mind when he excluded such a man.