I have many of these recorded conversations and comments thereon pasted down in the scrap-books aforesaid.

In England, also, one does not escape; and indeed the pleasure of being examined for publication is here less mixed; for on this side of the Atlantic it has been found dangerous to report what might be damaging to a man socially or financially; although, however, no judicial notice is taken of ridicule or false criticism; and therein an author (however little he may care for it) can be libelled to any extent and without all remedy.

Not but that some of the society papers have treated my unworthiness generously enough,--in particular, Edmunds' _World_, which, with too great severity and too little justice, has been taught to tell all truths charitably, if smartly,--and therefore I was glad to welcome his pleasant accredited interviewer, Mr.Becker, a year or two ago at Albury, who compliments me, not quite accurately perhaps, on "good looks and a passion for heart's-eases." Also, the gentleman who represents the _Glasgow Mail_ did his work wisely and kindly: and Mr.
Meltzer of the _New York Herald_; and I might name some others, not excepting my Sydenham friend, Mr.Leyland, who lately wrote a very pleasant paper about me at Norwood for a Philadelphian journal.
As to Advertising.
A word about advertisements, surely an authorial topic.

The absurdly extravagant profusion in which thousands of pounds are now being continually flung away in advertising, is one which was never approved by me, and as long as my books remained in print, at my suggestion they all got sold without it.

At present there are almost none in the market except Proverbial Philosophy, my Poems, Stephan Langton, and Dramas, and these still live and sell as before, after a silent life of many years.
I suppose advertising must answer, or it would not be persisted in; and certainly the newspapers (that chiefly live thereby) exhort all to crowd their columns, if they wish to win fortune: but how the perpetual and reiterated obtrusion of such single words as Oopack, or Syndicates, or Beecham's Pills, or Argosy Braces, or Grateful and Comforting, &c.