and enabling Admiral Russell to win his naval victory at La Hogue.  The former shows how nearly an Arthur Devis at Preston paid the penalty of death owing to his strange resemblance to Charles Edward the Young Pretender, for whom the savage Government of the time offered a reward of L30,000 to any one who could catch him alive or dead.  My mother’s ancestor was thus very nearly murdered in 1745 for his good looks, as a life-sized portrait at Albury, and an ivory miniature here at Norwood, help to prove.  If any wish to know more about these matters, I dare say that Messrs. Allen aforesaid have one copy left:  if not, consult Mudie, that virtuous philanthropist who benefits the reading public at the cost of the private author.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ANTIQUARIANA.

My most literary antiquarianism was an article I wrote for the Quarterly Review on Coins, accepted by Lockhart and inserted in one of the Nos. for 1843; he protested that “I could not be the Proverbial Philosopher, as my looks were too like David’s,—­it must be my father.”—­No, I replied, it is my father’s son.  However, when he read and approved my Coin article, he began to be convinced.  I give here his letter to me on his acceptance:—­

“Sir,—­I am at present terribly overburdened with MSS., and know not whether I can send a proof of your paper for some weeks; but I like it much, and it shall be put into type as soon as I can manage.  I assure you I am greatly pleased, and sincerely your obliged

“J.G.  Lockhart.

     “Sussex Place, February 16, 1843.”

I expostulated with him as to divers omissions for space’ sake, and for some unauthorised alterations; but editors are nothing if not autocratic, as we all know.  My article (I find it noted) was written on the numismatic works of Cardwell and of Akerman, and took me ten days in its composition, I tried Lockhart with a second article on “Ancient Gems,” but it failed to please.  I never had an interview with him but once, and then he seemed to me brusque and cynical at first, warming a little afterwards.  I have written also on Druidism; and the mystery of Easter Island, which I take to be the remains of a submerged Pacific continent, with its deified statues on the top of an extinct volcano.  And I have flung my pen into many other melees of discussion both old and new; for it may be stated as a feature in my literary life that I have had, one after another, all the ologies on my brain, and have personally made small collections of minerals, fossils, insects, and the like:  special hobbies having been agates picked up in my rambles on every beach from Yarmouth to Sidmouth, and coins at Roman stations wherever I found them; besides a host of numismatic treasures bought at Sotheby’s auction-room, but long since sold again, as well as sundry Egyptian and other antiquities.  In particular, the Roman discoveries at Farley Heath