It is enough, in these times, Heaven knows, for a man who represents, as I do, a town of a hundred and twenty thousand people to keep his own constituents in good humour; and the Spitalfields weavers, and Whitechapel butchers, are nothing to me.

But, ever since I succeeded in what everybody allows to have been the most hazardous attempt of the kind ever made,--I mean in persuading an audience of manufacturers, all Whigs or Radicals, that the immediate alteration of the corn-laws was impossible,--I have been considered as a capital physician for desperate cases in politics.

However,--to return from that delightful theme, my own praises,--Lushington, who is not very popular with the rabble of the Tower Hamlets, thinks that an oration from me would give him a lift.

I could not refuse him directly, backed as he was by my father.

I only said that I would attend if I were in London on the 11th; but I added that, situated as I was, I thought it very probable that I should be out of town.
I shall go to-night to Miss Berry's soiree.