punctuality and despatch. Expect him at Calais on the 26th
current,--Faithfully yours,

C. BUCKET.


From Count Fosco to Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., Goswell
Road.
5 Forest Road, St. John's Wood, May 23.


Dear Sir,--When we met lately at the hospitable board of our common
friend, Benjamin Allen, Esq., lately elected Professor of Chemistry
in the University of London, our conversation turned (if you can
pass me the intoxicating favour of remembering it) on the glorious
science of chemistry. For me this knowledge has ever possessed
irresistible attractions, from the enormous power which it confers
of heaping benefits on the suffering race of mankind. Others may
rejoice in the advantages which a knowledge of it bestows--the
power which can reduce a Hannibal to the level of a drummer boy, or
an all-pervading Shakspeare to the intellectual estate of a
vestryman, though it cannot at present reverse those processes.
The consideration of the destructive as compared with the
constructive forces of chemistry was present, as I recollect, to
your powerful intellect on the festive occasion to which I refer.
"Yes!" you said (permit me to repeat your very words)--"Yes, Count
Fosco, Alexander's morning draught shall make Alexander run for his
life at the first sound of the enemy's trumpet. So much chemistry
can achieve; but can she help as well as harm? Nay, can she answer
for it that the lemon which Professor Allen, from the best and