It is headed "An anecdote to account for certain slanders," the date being August 1865:-- "I have heard it seriously asserted of me that I am a great pugilist! and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so forth.

Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr.Payne (my publisher) told me about the 'pugilist,' and said he had heard it in the clubs that I was a match for Sayers,--as I conclude my sporting namesake is." In America, too, I found that my double lived at Hardwick, Worcester Co., N.Y., and that another Martin hailed from Buffalo.

So, like poor Edgar Poe, who had to suffer from the machinations of a profligate brother, who gave Edgar's name whenever he got into a scrape, I may have sometimes been credited with the sins of strangers.

No one is free from this sort of calumny.

We all have heard of Sheridan's wicked witticism, in that when taken up in Pall Mall for drunkenness, he gave his name Wilberforce; and it is said that he got drunk on purpose to say so! My venerable friend, Thomas Cooper, the pious and eloquent old Chartist, has been similarly confused with Robert Cooper, the atheist, lecturer; not but that Thomas had once been an atheist too.