order your own dinner three days in the week. I must retain my own
authority for the rest. As far as magazines go, I can answer for
Talfourd in the "New Monthly." He cannot be put out there. But it is
established as a favourite, and can do without these expletives. I long
to talk over with you the Shakspeare Picture. My doubts of its being a
forgery mainly rest upon the goodness of the picture. The bellows might
be trumped up, but where did the painter spring from? Is Ireland a
consummate artist--or any of Ireland's accomplices?--but we shall confer
upon it, I hope. The "New Times," I understand was favorable to "Ali,"
but I have not seen it. I am sensible of the want of method in this
letter, but I have been deprived of the connecting organ, by a practice
I have fallen into since I left Paris, of taking too much strong spirits
of a night. I must return to the Hotel de l'Europe and Macon.

How is Kenney? Have you seen my friend White? What is Poole about, &c.?
Do not write, but come and answer me.

The weather is charming, and there is a mermaid to be seen in London.
You may not have the opportunity of inspecting such a _Poisarde_ once
again in ten centuries.

My sister joins me in the hope of seeing you.

Yours truly,

C. LAMB.


[Lamb had met John Howard Payne, the American dramatist, at Kenney's, in
France. "Ali Pacha," a melodrama in two acts, was produced at Covent