a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas.  I recollect, too, in those early times, Mrs. Jameson, then a celebrated writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this day, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared at the notice she excited, quite to realise one’s expectation of a famous lioness.  With her I have since broken a lance in the interest of Byron, whom I considered maligned in the matter of his “sweet sister,” and accordingly wrote on his behalf a vindicatory fly-leaf of poetic indignation.  Another lance, too, have I broken in favour of Ouida, as against a newspaper critic who had tried to crush her “Moths;” I had met her before that, and did my little best in her defence, receiving from her from Italy a charming letter of acknowledgment.  “Ouida” is not generally known to have been the nursery name of “Louisa” de la Ramenay, just as “Boz” was of Dickens.  Both “Ouida” and Miss Braddon, whom also I have seen as Mrs. Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand.  There remains a worthy duplicated friendship of later years, Mr. and Mrs. Carter Hall, of whose geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also Mr. and Mrs. Grote, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also Lady Wilde, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, and her eloquent son Oscar, famous for taste all the world over; and as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, Charles Mackay, with his charming daughter, the poetess.

* * * * *

Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is Rogers, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St. James’s Place; Carlyle, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;—­after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty “God bless you, sir,” his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, “And good be with you!”

It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.

Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited Haweis, the eloquent preacher of St. James’s, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti’s, and when I called there last Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder.  This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of