224 ' DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [chap. xi. 



on this subject to a friend, in reference to a proposal to 

 deliver a lecture in Glasgow. It should be noticed that 

 he never lectured for money, though he might have 

 done so with great pecuniary benefit : — 



" I am thinking of giving or trying to give a lecture by invitation 

 at the Atbenseum. I am offered thirty guineas, and as my old friends 

 the cotton-spinners have invited me to meet them, I think of handing 

 the sum, whatever it may be, to them, or rather letting them take it and 

 fit up a room as a coffee-room on the plan of the French cafe's, where 

 men, women, and children may go, instead of to whisky-shops. 

 There are coffee-houses already, but I don't think there are any where 

 they can laugh and talk and read papers just as they please. The 

 sort I contemplate would suit poor young fellows who cannot have a 

 comfortable fire at home. I have seen men dragged into drinking 

 ways from having no comfort at home, and women also drawn to 

 the dram-shop from the same cause. Don't you think something 

 could be done by setting the persons I mention to do something for 

 themselves ] " 



Edinburgh conferred on Livingstone the freedom of 

 the city, besides entertaining him at a public breakfast 

 and hearing him at another meeting. We are not sur- 

 prised to find him writing to Sir Roderick Murchison 

 from Rossie Priory, on the 27th September, that he was 

 about to proceed to Leeds, Liverpool, and Birmingham, 

 " and then farewell to public spouting for ever. I am 

 dead tired of it. The third meeting at Edinburgh quite 

 knocked me up." It was generally believed that his 

 appearances at Edinburgh were not equal to some others ; 

 and probably there was truth in the impression, for he 

 must have come to it exhausted ; and besides, at a public 

 breakfast, he was put out by a proposal of the chairman, 

 that they should try to get him a pension. Yet some 

 who heard him in Edinburgh received impressions that 

 were never effaced, and it is probable that seed was 

 silently sown which led afterwards to the Scotch Living - 

 stonia Mission — one of the most hopeful schemes for carry- 

 ing out Livingstone's plans that have yet been organised. 



Among the other honours conferred on him during 



