I had been this morning to look at St. George's Hall, and suggest what can be done to improve its acoustics. As usually happens in such cases, their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. I should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and could certainly have placed the dais to much greater advantage. So all the good I could do was to show where banners could be hung with some hope of stopping echoes. Such is my small news, soon exhausted. We arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; Chorley has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while I was at Birmingham. It is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together that there is a ship-of-war in the Mersey, whose flags and so forth are to be brought up to St. George's Hall for the dinner. She is the _Donegal_, of which Paynter told me he had just been captain, when he told me all about Sydney at Bath. One of the pleasantest things I have experienced here this time, is the manner in which I am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. I never go out but this happens. Down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful stutter presented himself in this way. His modesty, combined with a conviction that if he were in earnest I would see it and wouldn't repel him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as I ever saw. [Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.] IMPERIAL HOTEL, BLACKPOOL, _Wednesday, April 21st, 1869._ I send you this hasty line to let you know that I have come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am much better than I was on Sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the readings. My weakness and deadness are all _on the left side_, and if I don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand, I don't know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank Beard; he recognises, in the exact description I have given him, indisputable evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. So I have said: "Go in and win." I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too, and I wear my own boot. [Sidenote: Miss Dickens.] PRESTON, _Thursday Evening, April 22nd, 1869._ _Don't be in the least alarmed._ Beard has come down, and instantly echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must be _stopped_. I have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. I go to Liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the office to-morrow. [Sidenote: The Lord John Russell.] GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Wednesday, May 26th, 1869._ MY DEAR LORD RUSSELL,