[14] Unable to make any thing “like a likeness” of a sitter for the purpose, I have a sort of Irish faculty for taking faces behind their backs. But my pencil has not been guilty of half the personalities attributed to it; amongst others “a formidable likeness of a Lombard Street Banker.” Besides that one would rather draw on a Banker than at him, I have never seen the Gentleman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life. [15] On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium, or Opie, as it was vulgarly called, was quite in common use in the form of pills amongst the lower classes, _in the vicinity of the Fens_. It is not probable that persons in such a rank of life had read the Confessions,--or, might not one suspect that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the stale, flat and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the Fen-People in the dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, had flown to the Drug for the sake of the magnificent _scenery_ that filled the splendid visions of its Historian? [Illustration: A LEADING ARTICLE.] THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE. THERE is no estimate more ludicrous than that which is formed by unthinking persons of the powers of Authors. Thus when a gentleman has once written a Book, say, on Domestic Medicine, it is popularly supposed that he is competent to compose a work on any subject whatever, from Transcendental Philosophy down to Five Minutes’ Advice on the Teeth. Something of the kind is observable in the Autobiography of Brasbridge, the Silversmith, of Fleet Street, who tells us that after the publication of his Memoirs, he was hailed by a fellow-citizen with “So you have written a book!--why, for the future I shall call you Shakspeare!” as if the recorder of a set of “fiddle-headed” anecdotes became, ipso facto, on a par with the creator of Othello. For another instance I can refer to my own humble experience. The anti-antiquarian nature of my literary researches is sufficiently well known; yet it did not prevent a grave retrospective-looking gentleman from one day concluding an account of some inedited architectural remains near Whitehall, with--“I wonder now that _you_, as a writer, have never taken up the subject!” The worthy F.A.S. might as well have suggested a plot for a Farce to Sylvanus Urban;--but such is the general opinion of the universality of a genius that prints. Bearing this tendency in mind, it will not seem so extraordinary that the following correspondence should be placed in the hands of the Editor of the Comic Annual by a respectable tradesman, who affirmed with tears in his eyes, that “it was a grave subject, worthy of the serious consideration of the Public.” [Illustration: THERE’S A DEFICIENCY ON THE QUARTER.] No. I.--_To Mister_ BENJAMIN CARNABY, _7, Brigantine Row, Deptford, London. (With Spead.)_