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reminds me of Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous
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Straduarius, worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great _Tennyson_ at Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden fence, which
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Yankees climb to have a look at him. _Browning_ also, _tantum vidi_, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. _Mortimer Collins_ has given us
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at Albury, coming in _à pied poudre_ on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! _Dickens_ I have met several times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son _Charles_ also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in _Household Words_ are from the pen of my youngest daughter. _Richard Owen_, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, _Godwin Austen_, the geologist; and I have met _Pengelly_, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and _Dr. Bowerbank_, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, _Stephen Mackenzie_, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. _Matthew Arnold_ also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and _Shirley Brooks_, _Albert Smith_, and _Mark Lemon_, once a chief of _Punch_, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. _Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he adjured me
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covering his face with his hands.
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What's the matter, friend?
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added he, in earnest penitence,
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Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,--it sells my books, besides--'I'se Maw-worm,--I likes to be despised!'
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Well, its very good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again: and the good fellow never did--so have I lost my most telling advertisement. I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late _Frank Smedley_,--a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed--from his invalid chair--
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he could not take part in; and one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just come from a wedding-breakfast,--
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he laughingly shouted. Poor fellow,--the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived strapped and banded with steel springs,--but as a gracious compensation Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with _J.G. Wood_, perhaps our best naturalist, especially in matters entomological. Never were there more humorous no less than instructive lectures than his, illustrated admirably as they are by his own graphic chalk-sketches on the spot: and if any one wishes to be convinced that animals have souls, let him read the said Rev. J.G. Wood's
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Man and Beast. Next will I mention _Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood_, famous as a naturalist and voyager among the China seas, a poet also, well proved by his
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Vision of Creation, and a thoughtful writer on religion and metaphysics. There is _Dr. Zerffi_, too, whose varied orations on history and other topics have filled our Crystal Palace with his advanced wisdom for fifteen years. There is _Birch_ the sculptor, author of the
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Godiva and
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The Last Call, exhibited here, and well appreciated by me as another _Durham_,--really a metempsychosis of character. Among literary ladies here I may mention as my friends _Madame Zerffi_, _Miss Mary Hooper_, and _Miss Ellen Barlee_,--all noted in their several departments, the first as an eloquent lecturer like her husband, the second known by her domestic essays, and the third for religious writings. I will add as casually encountered by me hereabouts _George MacDonald_, whose magnificent presence in the pulpit is as memorable as his conversation at the dinner-table, and the interest of his books; and _Lord Ronald Gower_, creator of that finest group of modern statuary