uested me to take this opportunity of recommending
his establishment to the 'Haythins and Turks' that yearly perform tours
in his vicinity.

The Rooneys live, and are as hospitable as ever. I dare not venture to
give their address, lest you should take advantage of the information.

O'Grady and his wife are now at Malta.

Jack Hinton and his are, as they have every right to be--

Your very grateful and obedient Servants.

My dear Friends,--You must often have witnessed, in the half-hour which
preludes departure from a dinner-party, the species of quiet bustle
leave-taking produces. The low-voiced announcement of Mr. Somebody's
carriage, the whispered good-night, the bow, the slide, the half-pressed
finger--and he is gone. Another and another succeed him, and the few who
linger on turn ever towards the opening door, and while they affect to
seem at ease, are cursing their coachman and wondering at the delay.

The position of the host on such an occasion is precisely that of the
author at the close of a volume. The same doubts are his whether the
entertainment he has provided has pleased his guests; whether the
persons he has introduced to one another are mutually satisfied. And,
finally, the same solitude which visits him who 'treads alone some
banquet-hall deserted' settles down upon the weary writer who watches
one by one the spirits he has conjured up depart for ever, and, worse
still, sees the tie snapped that for so long a period has bound him to
his readers; and while they have turned to other and newer sources of
amusement, he is left to brood over the time when they walked together,
and his voice was heard amongst them.

Like all who look back, he sees how much better he could have done
were he again to live over the past. He regrets many an opportunity of
interesting you lost for ever, many an occasion to amuse you which may
never occur again. It is thus that somehow--insensibly, I believe--a
kind of sadness creeps over one at the end of a volume; misgivings as to
success mingle with sorrows for the loss of our accustomed studies; and,
altogether, the author is little to be envied, who, having enjoyed your
sympathy and good wishes for twelve months, finds himself at last at
the close of the year at the limit of your kindness, and obliged to say
'Good-bye,' even though it condemns him to solitude.

I did wish, before parting with you at this season, to justify myself
before you for certain things which