O that Coronation! What a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines—_quel coup d’œil_! but was it not over-done, even for a coronation—almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 instead of 5.30.) Your list of books that Cassells have refused in these weeks is not quite complete; they also refused:— 1. Six undiscovered Tragedies, one romantic Comedy, a fragment of Journal extending over six years, and an unfinished Autobiography reaching up to the first performance of King John. By William Shakespeare. 2. The journals and Private Correspondence of David, King of Israel. 3. Poetical Works of Arthur, Iron Dook of Wellington, including a Monody on Napoleon. 4. Eight books of an unfinished novel, _Solomon Crabb_. By Henry Fielding. 5. Stevenson’s Moral Emblems. You also neglected to mention, as _per contra_, that they had during the same time accepted and triumphantly published Brown’s _Handbook to Cricket_, Jones’s _First_ _French Reader_, and Robinson’s _Picturesque Cheshire_, uniform with the same author’s _Stately Homes of Salop_. O if that list could come true! How we would tear at Solomon Crabb! O what a bully, bully, bully business. Which would you read first—Shakespeare’s autobiography, or his journals? What sport the monody on Napoleon would be—what wooden verse, what stucco ornament! I should read both the autobiography and the journals before I looked at one of the plays, beyond the names of them, which shows that Saintsbury was right, and I do care more for life than for poetry. No—I take it back. Do you know one of the tragedies—a Bible tragedy too—_David_—was written in his third period—much about the same time as Lear? The comedy, _April Rain_, is also a late work. _Beckett_ is a fine ranting piece, like _Richard II._, but very fine for the stage. Irving is to play it this autumn when I’m in town; the part rather suits him—but who is to play Henry—a tremendous creation, sir. Betterton in his private journal seems to have seen this piece; and he says distinctly that Henry is the best part in any play. ‘Though,’ he adds, ‘how it be with the ancient plays I know not. But in this I have ever feared to do ill, and indeed will not be persuaded to that undertaking.’ So says Betterton. _Rufus_ is not so good; I am not pleased with _Rufus_; plainly a _rifaccimento_ of some inferior work; but there are some damned fine lines. As for the purely satiric ill-minded _Abelard and Heloise_, another _Troilus_, _quoi_! it is not pleasant, truly, but what strength, what verve, what knowledge of life, and the Canon! What a finished, humorous, rich picture is the Canon! Ah, there was nobody like Shakespeare. But what I like is the David and Absalom business. Absalom