The displeasure of his chief, acting upon an honourable and sensitive mind, was too much for him.

THOMAS CROFTON CROKER, F.S.A.,

Was a friend of mine of many years' standing; and, although well known as the author of "Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland," was probably more distinguished as an antiquarian, and owed much of his celebrity to Sir Walter Scott's mention of him as "The King of the Fairies," in allusion to his diminutive stature. My first visit to him was at Rosamond's Bower, a pleasant little cottage at Fulham, where he had collected a museum of antiquities of all ages and countries. His cabinet of Egyptian scarabei was very numerous and rich, formed of precious stones and some of the precious metals. After a late sitting of the Literary Fund Committee we were leaving the house together, when he asked me what I was going to do with myself. I told him that I was very hungry, and, home being a long way off, I must get some dinner. 66 Well," he said, we will dine together. Have you got any money?" Whereupon I produced four half-crowns. "That will do admirably," he rejoined; and he took me to Wood's Tavern, the resort of the Noviomagians, Club, where we dined and discussed tumblers of whisky punch; and when our symposium was finished he called for the bill, which he slipped into his pocket, and told the waiter he would pay him at the next meeting of the club, and we separated. On the next morning he called on me and presented me with a scarabeus, which he himself had taken from the breast of a mummy which was of the time of the early Pharoahs, as a memento

He

of our pleasant meeting. added that he had a large collection, both genuine and counterfeit ; but that this was a true one. He told me one day that an ancestor of his, in Cromwell's time, lived in a castle with an only daughter, who was unmarried. Cromwell, according to his wont of rewarding his followers, gave a sergeant of his armv an order written on his saddlebow (saddlebow-titles such documents were styled) to take possession of this castle, before which the sergeant accordingly presented himself with his extemporised title, whereupon the young lady burst into tears and appealed eloquently to his generosity in behalf of her aged father, and hoped that he would not turn him out upon the world at his time of life. Whereupon the soldier suggested the alternative of the damsel taking him for "better or for worse," and thus obviating any necessity for disturbing her venerable parent. The young lady, nothing loth, closed at once with the proposal, and, in the words of the story books, "they lived together happily ever after."

Crofton Croker was a great frequenter of "old curiosity shops." I accompanied him once to one in Bond-street, where the proprietor showed him a large circle of gold wire, which Croker pronounced to be a "money ring," and for which the owner was willing to take its value as old gold. We then adjourned to a goldsmith's in the same street, who weighed it, and, the price being paid, my antiquarian friend walked off in triumph with his prize. He told me once of an old fowling piece, which was purchased-whether by himself or not I do not remember-at an old iron shop for a few shillings, the mountings of which turned out to be gold.

I add a transcript of a letter from

him characteristic of the man and of his country:

"Admiralty, 5th July, 1836. "My dear H.,-I arrived safely on Thursday last from the 'Green Isle'-what an isle it is for the absurdity of fun! I have seen much, and the conclusion is that I know nothing of Ireland. I have mixed freely and gaily with men notorious as leaders of opposing parties, and fine fellows in their own way they are. The very first invitation I received in native my city (Cork) was to Derrynane from Maurice O'Connell; the next from Mr. Leycester, the Orange member who was put out on petition with my friend Colonel Chatterton. I have dined at the Mansion House of Cork, the hotbed of Toryism, and with the parish priest of Blarney, who boasts that he was the man who first got up a resistance to tithes in Ireland. In fact, never was a man more curiously placed than I have been. I am just going to the anniversary of your friends the Noviomagians, who, I hope, will do themselves the honour of re-electing their president after his travels. We dine at Waltham to commemorate the restoration of its cross.- -Ever yours,

66

"T. CROFTON Croker."

I may remark that the epithet green," though applicable enough to the country, is not at all characteristic of the natives, who are anything but green. Sir William Chatterton, Bart., elder brother of the Colonel Chatterton alluded to, was a fine, handsome, and most agreeable person. His wife, Georgiana Lady Chatterton, wrote some novels.

of the Oriental Translation Society. He was a great ally of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, with whom he one day visited some charity schools, and, as they were afterwards crossing St. James's Park, the Archbishop was expatiating on the subject of Sunday amusements for the lower classes, on which he entertained rather liberal views, and enforced his arguments by calling Taylor's attention to a copy which one of the charity boys, whom they had just left, was writing, "Wide wears

tears."

tight

Taylor once asked the Archbishop's opinion as to whether he, Taylor, should reply to some attack that had been made upon him. "Can you pick up a stone to throw at a dog without stooping?" was Whately's reply. Taylor told me he was once under examination by a Committee of the House of Lords on the subject of education, when the Bishop of London, Dr. Blomfield-whose father was a schoolmaster, and his son at one time his assistant-asked Taylor, who was ignorant of the fact, what class of persons he considered to be the most ignorant, with reference to their opportunities. "Schoolmasters, my lord," was Taylor's unwitting reply, at which the Marquis of Lansdowne, who was behind the bishop, shook his finger at the doctor; but the mischief was done.

Some young noblemen, among whom was the Earl of W- (not Waterford, for he had sobered down into matrimony), were indicted for some riotous conduct, wrenching off knockers among other offences, for which the judgesentenced them to a small fine, in addition to a very edifying lecture on the impropriety of their behaviour. A few nights afterwards Taylor's knocker was wrenched off and carried away; upon which Taylor provided himself with a

new one, and sent the bill in to the judge, whom he considered to have encouraged the offence by his lenient dealing with the case in point.

He once told me of an ill-tempered countryman-he was a public man, but I forget his name who was said to have been born in a passion, and had been in it ever since.

Taylor married a very pretty Irish girl, and announced to me the fact in a letter so thoroughly Irish, that I cannot refrain from quoting the passage: "I have been married to my young cousin under circumstances of romance, such as you could not expect from my prosaic aspect. She was an orphan; her near relations neglected her; I began to show her some attentions, merely from respect to her deceased father. The correspondence soon changed from respectful to tender intercourse. I wrote to dissuade her [from marrying], on account of the disparity of age. She replied that such an objection had no weight on her mind. I went to Ireland from the Bristol Association [the British Association for the Advancement Science, which met there that year], persuaded the lady, talked down her guardians, battled lawyers, outfaced parsons, was married in a fortnight after landing, and am here with my wife." Taylor was much older, and did not live many years. His widow appears to have preserved the tenderness of heart ascribed to her, for she married again within a twelvemonth after his death.

of

SAMUEL LOVER, R.H.A., Was a very little, but agreeablelooking man, a very clever artist and author, his "Legends and Stories of Ireland" being, in my judgment, very superior to any contemporary books on the subject,

as they are to any of his attempts in the way of novel writing. The fun and humour by which they are characterised were greatly enhanced by his recitations of them, which I frequently heard in private, and once in the presence of the late Lord Canterbury, who was convulsed with laughter. The songs of Samuel Lover will live while music and pathos have power to charm. His voice was not strong, but he had a wonderful ear, and much sweetness of expression. His "Angel's Whisper" will never cease to be popular. He was in the habit of singing his songs in private, and also at the dinners of the Literary Fund Club, before they were published. He sang the "Angel's Whisper" at my own table. He was a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. He had also considerable reputation as a portrait painter.

THE NOVIOMAGIANS.

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Some fellows of the Society of Antiquaries discovered, near Keston, in Kent, the buried city of Noviomagus; and in honour of the achievement formed themselves into a club, which dined monthly, during the London season, Wood's Tavern, near Clare Market, immediately adjoining the burialground in which reposed the remains of Joe Miller, but which has now been built upon. At the time of my introduction as a guest by Mr. G. R. Corner, a distinguished and most enthusiastic antiquary, Crofton Croker was the president, and took the chair at dinner in a huge cocked hat, what sailors call a regular fore and after, which almost extinguished the little King of the Fairies; while the vice-president confronted him in the very smallest triangular cocked hat, which, he being

a large man, looked quite as ridiculous. The dinner was a very unpretending one, soup, fish, poultry, and a joint; the wines port and sherry; then soda water and an early break-up. Among the guests was Lord Dunboyne, who sat next to me and told me that he had lately been at a wedding of the daughter of a very rich but stingy man, who consulted him as to the fee which should be given to the clergyman, a poor curate. "Oh," said Lord Dunboyne, "as he is a relation of the family he won't take a fee, so you may as well do the thing handsomely and offer him a twenty pounds' note;" which the curate, as his lordship anticipated, put into his pocket with many expressions of gratitude. Sir William Betham, Ulster King at Arms, was a member, and was there on every occasion on which I was invited. There was a good deal of fun going on always. Jerdan was a regular attendant, and was a member. The qualification for membership was the F.S.A.

JOSEPH SNOW

Was a man of graceful manners, refined mind, and considerable literary attainments. He had come into possession early of a large fortune, which, however, he contrived to get through, and when I first knew him he was clerk to the Literary Fund, the office not having then attained to the dignity of a secretaryship. He published a volume of poems, among which was one on the " Wallflower," of singular power and originality of thought. He also published, with Murray, a volume of epitaphs, for the most part original, entitled "Churchyard Thoughts." He was exceedingly sensitive, and of not remarkably even temper; and so it happened that, taking umbrage at some remark of one of the com

mittee, he threw up his appointment, and went into Wales, where he undertook the editorship of a newspaper, under the auspices, I think, of the Marquis of Bute. That enterprise failing, he returned to London, when Mr. Blewitt, the secretary to the Royal Literary Fund, having been requested to recommend a person for a vacancy in the gift of the Queen in the Charter House, named Snow, and he accordingly became a brother. Naturally fastidious, he became disgusted with his associates, and was constantly complaining. Among other grounds of dissatisfaction was the practice of the other brethren bringing butter in a bear's grease pot to the dining hall. last, however, his health, never very good, began to fail; and, feeling that death was not far distant, he resolved that it should not occur in what he called an almshouse, and accordingly he sold all his effects, and betook himself into the country, where he died. I remember that he had one answer to any witticism perpetrated on his name, "He could not see the drift of it."

WILLIAM JERDAN

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I was intimately acquainted with for a great number of years, in the course of which I received from him many kindnesses, and we remained upon excellent terms until, on the occurrence of a vacancy in a secretaryship, for which I had a vote, I felt it to be my duty to vote against his son, who was a candidate for the office. It was natural enough, with his estimate of his son's qualifications, that he should feel aggrieved, and the more so as he knew I had no personal interest in the successful candidate, beyond my conviction of his entire fitness for the position; and I was not long in discovering in the pages of the Literary Gazette that

he did not soon forget the circumstance. With all his faults, which it is not my office to chronicle, he was essentially a good-tempered and good-natured man. He had great conversational powers, and discoursed well, not only on subjects which he understood, but on those which he did not. He was very ready in repartee. I was dining once with him and Crofton Croker, shortly after the death of the Earl of Moira, when Croker remarked that the earl, with all his talents and accomplishments, would "leave no wake upon the stream of time." "Nonsense, Crofty," said Jerdan, "every dead Irishman has a wake." He was a man of very popular manners, and at one time, in the palmy days of the Literary Gazette, had considerable influence. He was on good terms with Canning, who granted him interview five minutes after he had

an

kissed hands on Leing appointed prime minister by George IV. Had his prudence been at all proportionate to his abilities he might have died a rich man. He told me himself that his literary income was 20007. annually for many years, and that was a great sum in those days. He mentioned to me that he once called upon Canning immediately after an interview between the latter and Queen Caroline, and the mantel-piece on which she had been leaning was wet with her

tears.

Jerdan was a man of great bodily activity, and during the conflagration of the Houses of Parliament so distinguished himself in attempting to subdue the flames, that he was thanked for it by several peers, who were engaged in the same hopeless endeavour.

The decline of the Literary Gazette, once almost of as much authority as the London Gazette, was in great part attributable to the rivalry of the Athenæum, which

had a well-paid and efficient staff, while I have reason to believe that most part of the contributions to the Literary Gazette were gratuitous. Crofton Croker and "L. E. L." were Jerdan's great helps. Many years ago there was a bonassus, the first seen in Europe I believe, which was exhibited for some weeks in London, and among his many visitors was a publisher, whose face, to quote Apollo Belvedere in the farce, "was not what the world would call handsome," and was so distasteful to the bonassus that he made a rush at said publisher as soon as he saw him; and the same result followed a repetition of the visit. Jerdan used to account for it by saying that the brute was envious of the publisher's superior ugliness. The poor man (and yet not poor, for he was very rich) had a most distressing squint that often, to my own personal knowledge, produced the contretemps described in a verse, which I will venture to quote, without naming the author:

So, sir, when at table you answer a sign From a man with a squint, of his wish to take wine,

You find out, though you thought he had got a clear sight of you,

He means that young lady, the third to the right of you.

I have referred to Jerdan's kindness, and here is a letter, showing that he would do a graceful thing in a graceful way. It refers to a review of a recently published book of my own, in an early period of our acquaintance:

"My Dear Sir,-If you always hasten to thank me for doing what is right, I shall seem to lose the pleasure of performing a duty, and to be looking for a reward of another kind. It is, however, always gratifying when one can publicly serve those for whom they entertain much private esteem. It is a balance for such pain as I have