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 “not to do it! for Heaven’s sake, spare me!” covering his face with his hands.  “What’s the matter, friend?” “I wrote all these,” added he, in earnest penitence, “and I vow faithfully I’ll never do it again!” “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!’” “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—­“the dances and delights” he could not take part in; and one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just come from a wedding-breakfast,—­“rehearsing, rehearsing,” 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 “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 “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 “Godiva” and “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 “the Apotheosis of Shakespeare,” exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where, as well, as by correspondence, I have had with him much pleasant intercourse.