[Sidenote: Mr. T. Ross. Mr. J. Kenny.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, 19th May, 1856._ GENTLEMEN, I have received a letter signed by you (which I assume to be written mainly on behalf of what are called Working-Men and their families) inviting me to attend a meeting in our Parish Vestry Hall this evening on the subject of the stoppage of the Sunday bands in the Parks. I thoroughly agree with you that those bands have afforded an innocent and healthful enjoyment on the Sunday afternoon, to which the people have a right. But I think it essential that the working people should, of themselves and by themselves, assert that right. They have been informed, on the high authority of their first Minister (lately rather in want of House of Commons votes I am told) that they are almost indifferent to it. The correction of that mistake, if official omniscience can be mistaken, lies with themselves. In case it should be considered by the meeting, which I prefer for this reason not to attend, expedient to unite with other Metropolitan parishes in forming a fund for the payment of such expenses as may be incurred in peaceably and numerously representing to the governing powers that the harmless recreation they have taken away is very much wanted, I beg you to put down my name as a subscriber of ten pounds. And I am, your faithful Servant. [Sidenote: Mr. Washington Irving.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _London, July 5th, 1856._ MY DEAR IRVING, If you knew how often I write to you individually and personally in my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note than you were in seeing me do my duty by that flowery julep (in what I dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at Baltimore. Will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, Mr. B----, who is associated with a merchant's house in New York? Of course he wants to see you, and know you. How can _I_ wonder at that? How can anybody? I had a long talk with Leslie at the last Academy dinner (having previously been with him in Paris), and he told me that you were flourishing. I suppose you know that he wears a moustache--so do I for the matter of that, and a beard too--and that he looks like a portrait of Don Quixote.