Let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt letter. I am really and truly sensible of your friendliness. I have not heard from Higgins, but of course I am ready to serve on the Committee. Always faithfully yours. [Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday, March 19th, 1859._ MY DEAR PROCTER, I think the songs are simply ADMIRABLE! and I have no doubt of this being a popular feature in "All the Year Round." I would not omit the sexton, and I would not omit the spinners and weavers; and I would omit the hack-writers, and (I think) the alderman; but I am not so clear about the chorister. The pastoral I a little doubt finding audience for; but I am not at all sure yet that my doubt is well founded. Had I not better send them all to the printer, and let you have proofs kept by you for publishing? I shall not have to make up the first number of "All the Year Round" until early in April. I don't like to send the manuscript back, and I never do like to do so when I get anything that I know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good. I am hard at work upon my story, and expect a magnificent start. With hearty thanks, Ever yours affectionately. [Sidenote: Mr. Edmund Yates.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C., _Tuesday, March 29th, 1859._ MY DEAR EDMUND, 1. I think that no one seeing the place can well doubt that my house at Gad's Hill is the place for the letter-box. The wall is accessible by all sorts and conditions of men, on the bold high road, and the house altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood. Captain Goldsmith's _house_ is up a lane considerably off the high road; but he has a garden _wall_ abutting on the road itself. 2. "The Pic-Nic Papers" were originally sold to Colburn, for the benefit of the widow of Mr. Macrone, of St. James's Square, publisher, deceased. Two volumes were contributed--of course gratuitously--by writers who had had transactions with Macrone. Mr. Colburn, wanting three volumes in all for trade purposes, added a third, consisting of an American reprint. Of that volume I didn't know, and don't know, anything. The other two I edited, gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the Lamplighter's story in. It was all done many years ago. There was a preface originally, delicately setting forth how the book came to be. 3. I suppose ---- to be, as Mr. Samuel Weller expresses it somewhere in "Pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness o' willany." Under their advertisement in _The Times_ to-day, you will see, without a word of comment, the shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment. Ever faithfully. [Sidenote: Mr. Antonio Panizzi.] "ALL THE YEAR ROUND" OFFICE, _Thursday, April 7th, 1859._ MY DEAR PANIZZI,