76 MY LIFE 



etc., to all of which Dr. Purland replied with such prompti- 

 tude and intelligence that all our friends were soon gath- 

 ered round to hear the discussion, which went on a long 

 time. 



Dr. Purland also possessed a most interesting series of 

 scrap-books, in which he had collected an immense number 

 of engravings and woodcuts from old magazines, papers, and 

 books, which, during his life in London, he had picked up at 

 bookstalls or among his friends. These were beautifully ar- 

 ranged in a series of uniform quarto volumes, in some of 

 which he had illustrated his own second marriage by means 

 of a series of appropriate caricatures, showing the courtship, 

 the proposal, the ceremony, the wedding breakfast, the de- 

 parture, the wedding journey, with numerous incidents to the 

 return home ; and occasionally among friends he would go 

 through all these, describing the various incidents in a most 

 humorous manner, so as to keep us all highly amused. When 

 he came to any of our evening receptions, he usually appeared 

 with one of these books under his arm, and it was always 

 a source of much interest to our guests. Besides these books, 

 he had a great collection of odd duplicate scraps, some of 

 which he used to gum on to the envelopes of letters in place 

 of a seal, or inside to illustrate some matter referred to in 

 the letter. 



I possess about a dozen of his letters — replies to invitations, 

 remarks on reading my early books, or other matters — all 

 so amusing and so well illustrating the character and indi- 

 viduality of the man that I will now print some of them, and 

 give a few in facsimile to show his style of caricature illus- 

 tration. 



The letter opposite was, I think, the first I had from him, 

 and I only give it to illustrate two of his peculiarities — his 

 gastronomical taste indicated by " Beer Month " for October, 

 and the " piece of plate " represented by half a beautiful little 

 print in blue of an old willow-pattern plate pasted in opposite 

 the signature. 



The next letter is in answer to an invitation to tea. He 



