He wrote _The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century_ in 1851, while he must have been at work on _Esmond_, and first delivered the course at Willis's Rooms in that year.

He afterwards went with these through many of our provincial towns, and then carried them to the United States, where he delivered them to large audiences in the winter of 1852 and 1853.

Some few words as to the merits of the composition I will endeavour to say in another place.

I myself never heard him lecture, and can therefore give no opinion of the performance.

That which I have heard from others has been very various.