76 MY LIFE [Chap. 



to all of which Dr. Purland replied with such promptitude 

 and intelligence that all our friends were soon gathered 

 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- 

 arranged 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 

 departure, 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 invita- 

 tions, remarks on reading my early books, or other matters 

 — all so amusing and so well illustrating the character and 

 individuality of the man that I will now print some of them, 

 and give a few in facsimile to show his style of caricature 

 illustration. 



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

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

 had been reading my " Malay Archipelago," and the reference 



