TC-JF, 22 [23] March. MS: FC. Hitherto unpbd. With this letter is a note from Espinasse to Forster (see below) and TC's calling card, on which he wrote: “To John Forster Esqr / 58. Lincoln's Inn Fields / [printed: Mr Carlyle]'s Complts / By Mr. Espinasse—.” According to TC to MAC, 21 March, TC was at Addiscombe, Sun., 22 March; this letter probably written on his return.

1. Espinasse's note is dated “Wednesday”: “Mr Espinasse presents his compliments to Mr Forster, who will receive, probably some time to-morrow, a note from Mr Carlyle concerning him.— Mr Espinasse regrets that he cannot easily get at his few accepted contributions to the Morning Post, and encloses a proof of one which he is at liberty to dispose of as he pleases. Perhaps from it Mr Forster may be able to decide whether Mr Espinasse possesses intelligence adequate for the kind of employment he is in search of.—”

2. Of TC's introduction of him to John Forster, Espinasse wrote: “Goethe has said somewhere that the most trying situation for a man is to find himself in completely altered circumstances without being mentally and otherwise in the least prepared for the change. One fine day this was my painful predicament. With goodwill towards me Carlyle harboured a strong dislike for the person [Panizzi] to whom the perplexities of my position were mainly due, so that sympathy and antipathy combined to induce him to interest himself in my behalf. … He offered … to introduce me … to two friends of his, both of them connected with the newspaper press, John Forster and John Robertson. / Forster was then one of the busiest of London journalists, and Carlyle's influence was needed to procure for an obscure aspirant easy access to him. … It is also true that he imitated in everyday life the stage mannerism of Macready, … [the] ‘great tragedian,’ of whom he was the intimate friend. I remember being in this way rather overpowered at one of my first interviews with him. I called on him by appointment, and he kept me a few minutes waiting. Then he strode into the room and striking an attitude, exclaimed in a tragic tone: ‘It is with infinite regret that I have caused you this delay. Believe me,’ and here he placed his hand upon his heart, ‘I feel it sensibly’” (Espinasse 113–16).

3. Who, in Greek mythology, showed so much justice in life that in death he became a judge in the underworld.

4. Too late for the Supplement or second edn. was a letter (now in Works 9:233, where its owner is acknowledged) sent to TC by the Rev. W. S. Spring Caseborn, of Newhouse, Pakenham, nr. Ixworth, 18 March 1846: “I received your note through our friend Mr Donaldson this afternoon. / It gives me great pleasure to comply with the request you make. On reading your work a few weeks ago, I regretted we had not previously communicated with each other. / I trust my copy is exact.”

5. There was no pamphlet, but Dickens's “Letters on Social Questions. Capital Punishment,” were pbd. in the Daily News, 23, 28 Feb., 9, 13, and 16 March.