Volume Iii Part 33 (1/2)

3; ”simple and quiet, but very natural and touching.”--_Evening Bore._

Ever affectionately.

NEW SONG.

TUNE--”Lesbia hath a beaming eye.”

1.

Lemon is a little hipped, And this is Lemon's true position; He is not pale, he's not white-lipped, Yet wants a little fresh condition.

Sweeter 'tis to gaze upon Old ocean's rising, falling billows, Than on the houses every one, That form the street called Saint Anne's Willers.

Oh, my Lemon, round and fat, Oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un, Think a little what you're at-- Don't stay at home, but come to Brighton!

2.

Lemon has a coat of frieze, But all so seldom Lemon wears it, That it is a prey to fleas, And ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it.

Oh, that coat's the coat for me, That braves the railway sparks and breezes, Leaving every engine free To smoke it, till its owner sneezes!

Then my Lemon, round and fat, L., my bright, my right, my tight 'un, Think a little what you're at-- On Tuesday first, come down to Brighton!

T. SPARKLER.

Also signed,

CATHERINE d.i.c.kENS, ANNIE LEECH, GEORGINA HOGARTH, MARY d.i.c.kENS, KATIE d.i.c.kENS, JOHN LEECH.

[Sidenote: Rev. James White.]

WINTERBOURNE, _Sunday Evening, Sept. 23rd, 1849._

MY DEAR WHITE,

I have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you how good I thought those papers in ”Blackwood”--how excellent their purpose, and how delicately and charmingly worked out. Their subtle and delightful humour, and their grasp of the whole question, were something more pleasant to me than I can possibly express.

”How comes this lumbering Inimitable to say this, on this Sunday night of all nights in the year?” you naturally ask. Now hear the Inimitable's honest avowal! I make so bold because I heard that Morning Service better read this morning than ever I have heard it read in my life. And because--for the soul of me--I cannot separate the two things, or help identifying the wise and genial man out of church with the earnest and unaffected man in it. Midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness I hope that will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come. The madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter (see the history of the Gunpowder Plot), but let us be friends much longer for these reasons and many included in them not herein expressed.

Affectionately always.

[Sidenote: Miss Joll.]

ROCKINGHAM CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONs.h.i.+RE, _Nov. 27th, 1849._

Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens presents his compliments to Miss Joll. He is, on principle, opposed to capital punishment, but believing that many earnest and sincere people who are favourable to its retention in extreme cases would unite in any temperate effort to abolish the evils of public executions, and that the consequences of public executions are disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with which Miss Joll is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as one undoubtedly calculated to benefit society at large.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]