My Life as an Author Part 24

As to Leech, who probably adorned his books similarly, he, being a day-boy and allowed for safety to scuttle out of the playground before school broke up, came not equally under our surveillance in those days; but long years after, when that genial and witty friend and true gentleman was my guest at Albury, I had great delight in his company, and he helped cleverly to ill.u.s.trate (along with divers other artists) my "Crock of Gold" and "Proverbial Philosophy," and in part "The Anglo-Saxon." I remember a characteristic little anecdote about him, as thus:--

We went angling together to Postford Pond, on a fine hot day, thinking less of possible sport than of sandwiches and sherry, and an idle lounge on a sloping bank in the shade, and haply (though for myself I am no smoker) the calmly contemplative cigar. As we lay there, in _dolce-far-niente_ fashion, all at once Leech jumped up with a vigorous "Confound that float! can't it leave me at peace? I've been watching it bobbing these five minutes, and now it's out of sight altogether--hang it!" With that hearty exclamation of disgust pulling up a brilliant two-pound perch, the glory of the day! Next week's _Punch_ had a pleasant comic sketch of this petty incident, thereby immortalised by the famous "bottled leech."

It always struck me that Tenniel and he were a well-matched pair, in kindliness, cleverness, and good looks; and I never can think of one without the other--_arcades ambo; par n.o.bile fratrum_.

Thackeray lived to have his full revenge of Dr. Birch, in our day the reigning tyrant of Charterhouse; and Russell well deserved his castigation both by pen and pencil.

Let me also give a brace of home sketches of Longfellow. I have had two princ.i.p.al interviews with him in his beautiful home at Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, at the wide interval between those visits of twenty-five years. Of the first of these I record a few words from my American MS.

journal in 1851, adding some unwritten thoughts and recollections. On April 16th, then, in the year just named, Longfellow wrote to me cordially, and with much kindly appreciation, and soon after, calling on me at Boston, took me off in his carriage over the flooded lowlands to the ancient (for America) University of Cambridge, where the Queen Anne-like colleges are nestled in fine old elms. He treated me, of course, most hospitably, and had asked several friends to meet the traveller; but one, a chief guest, was otherwise engaged, and so I missed Lowell, to my great disappointment. It is not my "form" to detail private conversation, nor to describe the Lares and Penates of sacred domesticity; but I may reveal generally that I spent several golden hours of intellectual communion with the Abbott Laurences, Ticknor, Fields, Prescott, and Everett--ill.u.s.trious names, which will sufficiently indicate the reception they gave me. At this time of day I cannot remember the thousand "winged speeches" that flew about that genial board, and, as I failed, from conscientious motives, to record them in my journal, I will not invent, after thirty-four years have pa.s.sed over my memory, with their crowds of other words and fancies. Be this enough: I recollect to have asked Longfellow why he wrote Excelsi_or_, and not the more grammatical Excelsi_us_, as the t.i.tle to one of his most famous poems. The reason is a curious one; he wrote those stirring verses, by request, on the motto for the New York coat-of-arms, which is legended not quite accurately, Excelsi_or_. And when, in the same line of thought, I inquired why he named a German story "Hyperion," with no apparent reason from cla.s.sical a.s.sociations, he pertinently enough answered me by p.r.o.nouncing the name _huper-iown_, ("going higher"), the story being a tale of progress in human character.

And now to leap over twenty-five years, at which interval I paid my second visit to America in 1876, when again I had the privilege of being Longfellow's guest in the same historic abode where Washington had once his headquarters. My kind-hearted host insisted on my occupying the same arm-chair I had before, and which since, he said, had been the throne of d.i.c.kens and Thackeray, and every book-celebrity that had visited Cambridge. Among invited guests unable to come was Oliver Wendell Holmes, but I soon after made up for this loss by having a long talk with that shrewd and amusing writer at Boston; and once more, alas! no Lowell, whom I missed again, though I had waited for him that quarter of a century! Longfellow, out of compliment (so he kindly said) to his English guest, had specially provided pheasants and Stilton cheese, among such more Transatlantic delicacies as wild venison (from Tupper Lake, in the Adirondacks), and canvas-back ducks from Baltimore; to say less of terrapin soup, whereof the unhatched eggs of tortoises are the _bonne-bouche_! After dinner he gave me an apple from Beaupre, Evangeline's farm, the pips whereof I sent to Albury for planting.

Longfellow was much interested to hear that my collateral ancestor had married Martha, the heiress of "the Vineyard" in Rhode Island. Mr.

Fields, on this festive occasion, recited some of Mark Twain's humour, and I had to give sundry of my American ballads, and the host himself his exquisite "Psalm of Life;" my "Venus," in reply to his "Mars,"

having appeared, and been praised by him, some years before. And this meagre record is all I care, or have s.p.a.ce, to give of that feast of reason and flow of soul.

With _Charles Kingsley_, however seldom we met, I had strong sympathy in many ways, as a man of men, to be loved and admired; but chiefly we could feel for each other in the matter of stammering,--a sort of affliction not sufficiently appreciated. Kingsley conquered his infirmity, as I did mine, and rose to frequent eloquence in his public ministrations: privately his speech would often fail him, and was his "thorn in the flesh" to the end.

I remember a most pleasant day spent with him about the fishponds and cascades of Wotton,--and I noted how skilfully he threw the fly some five-and-twenty feet under the bushes, to the wonder of a gaping trout, soon to find its lodging in the creel: and our kind host may still recollect, as I do, how charming was our intercourse that day with the genial author of "Yeast," "Alton Lock," "Hypatia," "Westward ho!" and other of our favourites. I have met Kingsley later, in his cloistered nest, as Canon of Westminster, and remember how heartily he expressed his abundant charity for all sorts of miserable sinners, especially about one of whom I came to speak, for there never lived a more universal excuser of human imperfection than Charles Kingsley. His bust, very like him, is in a side chapel of the Abbey, near the west door.

With the learned and eloquent Canon Farrar, too, I have held converse in the same Broad Sanctuary, though but briefly. Harrison Ainsworth has often crossed my orbit. In particular, as a very early contributor to his magazine (wherein, by the way, my "Flight upon Flying" originally appeared, to be afterwards reproduced at the Royal Aquarium a year or two ago), I was among his invited guests at Kensal Manor house, for the inauguration of his magazine, meeting Douglas Jerrold, Blanchard, Albert Smith, and others of like note. Also, at Lord Mayor's feasts we have periodically met, and at Literary Fund dinners. I may mention that when we came near one another a few years since, at the Mansion-House, an American friend with me was startled at the resemblance between Ainsworth and myself: in fact, our photographic portraits have often been mutually sold for each other, and I remember in a shop window seeing my name written under a photo clearly not myself, however like; and my daughter with me said "It must be a mistake, for you never had such a waistcoat as that," it being a brilliant plaid: so we went in to set matters right, and the shopman, in correcting the mistake, observed he didn't wonder, we were so alike: furthermore, on the outside cover of a cheap edition of Ainsworth's "James II.," his portrait is the very counterpart of one painted, by Rochard, long years ago, of myself.

I was well acquainted, fifty-five years ago, with three eminent men, who afterwards became viceroys, as their fellow cla.s.sman and collegian at Christ Church. At that time two of them were only younger sons in their "pupa" or pupil phases of Ramsay and Bruce, and wore the same commoner's gown as myself; the third, though a "tuft" by courtesy, had not yet come to his heritage. All these three succeeded one another in the high position of a Governor-General of India, and were famous architects of our imperial greatness. I remember on either side of me in Biscoe's memorable Aristotle cla.s.s before mentioned, the young Ramsay, afterwards Dalhousie, that great pro-consul who annexed a third of our Indian Empire; and the young Bruce, afterwards Elgin, famous from Canada to China; the former slim, ascetic, and reserved; the latter a perfect contrast, being stout, genial, and outspoken; while Canning, tall and good-looking, with curly dark hair and florid complexion, is mentionable also for his fluency of speech and cordiality of manner--hereditaments, doubtless, of his distinguished father. Of Lord Elgin I have many pleasant memories, especially when he hospitably received me at Toronto, whither he had recently migrated from Montreal (as I thought unwisely), because the French Canadians there had insulted him. In this connection I may give an anecdote to the point. Soon after my return from America in 1851 I dined with my neighbour at Albury, Henry Drummond, the humoursome M.P., always not a little good-naturedly mischievous. He knew that I had not approved of Lord Elgin's petulant removal of his viceroyal establishment from Montreal to Toronto, and cunningly resolved to draw me out before witnesses on the matter. Now I had taken in to dinner an elderly Scotch lady unknown to me, and sat next to her of course. Soon my lively host somewhat unfairly asked me about my visit to Canada, and what I thought of the then notorious flight of the Governor to far distant Toronto,--forcing me to express my disapproval, which naturally as an honest man I did, on which my left-hand neighbour, a lady of rank whom I knew, whispered "Mind what you are saying, you took in his mother." Accordingly, I had frankly to turn and say, "And I'm sure Lady Elgin will agree with me, and you too, Mr. Drummond, for no captain should fly from his post because he's laughed at." This candid speech was fortunately applauded all round the table, and not least by the friendly Countess and the baffled mischief lover.

Lord Elgin most kindly interested himself in the restoration of the Brock monument at Queenstown Heights, which had then recently been damaged by gunpowder, and is since rebuilt: my good reason for asking his aid being that Sir Isaac Brock was my near relative (his mother bearing my name), and that he had saved Canada by his death in victory.

CHAPTER XLI.

A FEW OLDER FRIENDSHIPS.

It is only fair and right that I make special mention of some friendships of many years, connected more or less with literary matters.

Among such names in the past occurs one, if not very eminent, to me at least very kindly, that of Benjamin Nightingale, an antiquarian friend for nearly forty years. We first became acquainted in Sotheby's auction room, where I perceived at once his generous nature, by this token: we had been competing for a miscellaneous lot of coins, which he bought,--and then lifting his hat he asked me which of them I had specially wanted; these I indicated, of course thinking that he meant me to buy them of him,--but he immediately insisted upon giving them, if I would allow him. This fair beginning led to better acquaintance, often improved under our mutual roof-trees. It was his ambition to be my Boswell, as he has sometimes told me; and probably there are bundles somewhere of _his_ MSS. and of _our_ antiquarian letters (he wrote very well), about which I have vainly made inquiry of a near relative, who knew nothing about them. Some day they'll turn up.

Nightingale was much pleased to find himself recorded in my "Farley Heath," as to both verse and prose. He has been in the Better World some twelve years, and his widow gave me the collections he called his Tupperiana.

I confess that the following poem wherein my genial friend figures,--and which many judges have liked as among my best balladisms, is one reason for this record of B.N.

_Farley Heath._

"Many a day have I whiled away Upon hopeful Farley Heath, In its antique soil digging for spoil Of possible treasure beneath; For Celts, and querns, and funereal urns, And rich red Samian ware, And sculptured stones and centurions' bones May all lie buried there!

"How calmly serene, and glad have I been From morn till eve to stay, My men, no serfs, turning the turfs The happy livelong day; With eye still bright, and hope yet alight, Wistfully watching the mould, As the spade brings up fragments of things Fifteen centuries old!

"Pleasant and rare it was to be there On a joyous day of June, With the circling scene all gay and green Steep'd in the silent moon; When beauty distils from the calm glad hills, From the downs and dimpling vales; And every grove, lazy with love, Whispereth tenderest tales!

"O then to look back upon Time's old track, And dream of the days long past, When Rome leant here on his sentinel spear And loud was the clarion's blast;-- As wild and shrill from Martyr's Hill Echoed the patriot shout; Or rush'd pell-mell with a midnight yell The rude barbarian rout!

"Yes; every stone has a tale of its own, A volume of old lore; And this white sand from many a brand Has polish'd gouts of gore; When Holmbury Height had its beacon light, And Cantii held old Leith, And Rome stood then with his iron men On ancient Farley Heath!

"How many a group of that exiled troop Have here sung songs of home, Chanting aloud to a wondering crowd The glories of old Rome!

Or lying at length have basked their strength Amid this heather and gorse, Or down by the well in the larch-grown dell Water'd the black war-horse!

"Look, look! my day-dream right ready would seem The past with the present to join,-- For see! I have found in this rare ground An eloquent green old coin, With turquoise rust on its Emperor's bust-- Some Caesar, august lord, And the legend terse, and the cla.s.sic reverse, 'Victory, valour's reward!'

"Victory--yes! and happiness, Kind comrade, to me and to you, When such rich spoil has crown'd our toil And proved the day-dream true; With hearty acclaim how we hail'd by his name The Caesar of that coin, And told with a shout his t.i.tles out, And drank his health in wine!

"And then how blest the noon-day rest, Reclin'd on a gra.s.sy bank, With hungry cheer and the brave old beer, Better than Odin drank; And the secret balm of the spirit at calm, And poetry, hope, and health,-- Ay, have I not found in that rare ground A mine of more than wealth?"

Another long-time friend also of the antiquarian sort was Walter Hawkins, with whom I was intimate for many years. His private collection of coins and curiosities was even larger and costlier than Nightingale's, and was given by his administratrix to the United Service Museum, where I believe the bulk of it (perhaps morally mine) still remains in cases not yet unpacked. He died suddenly, to my great financial loss; for he was very fond of me, offering himself sponsor and giving his name to a son of mine; and as a rich old bachelor he used, to make humorously half promises of benefits to come. In fact, he had called in his lawyer to take instructions for a new will, and partly at least had erased or destroyed the old one of a twelve years agone, when, one raw and wintry morning, he insisted upon seeing a lady from and to her carriage without his hat (punctilio being his _forte_ and his fault), caught cold, took to his bed, and was dead in four days!

Accordingly a relative with whom he had not been on the best of terms for years, administered to his half will, and succeeded to his possessions. Such is life and its futile expectations.

Walter Hawkins had many peculiarities: one was this. At great cost he was long building for himself a tomb at Kensal Green, which he would not let me see till it was finished: he then triumphantly exhibited to my astonished eyes a domed marble temple with four bronze angels blowing trumpets east, west, north, and south,--and waited for my approval, which honestly I could not give. I heard nothing more of this small mausoleum, for he was a taciturn man: but when, some year or two after, I went to his funeral and looked in vain for the temple-tomb, I found it had vanished, and in its stead was a plain marble slab with his simple name and birthday on it, and a blank left for the date of his death.

Manifestly he had repented of the vaingloriousness of those herald angels and their dome; and practically took the hint of my dispraise in the adoption of that humbler tombstone.

Here is another characteristic trait: some navvy had found an old rusty anchor near the Thames Tunnel, one of Brunel's ruinous follies,--now, as we all know, finished and utilised by a railway. This anchor, a small one, probably lost by some "jolly young waterman," Mr. Hawkins maintained was Roman; and he had made for it a superb crimson case lined with satin, which hung on his drawing-room wall at Hammersmith as a decoration. He was also proud of possessing the paw of the Arctic bear which had attacked Captain Parry, but from which he escaped, as also did the bear, for no one is said to have shot the beast: however, there was the paw in proof: and there were divers other uncommon properties.

One of the most curious matters about my friend was this: the anagram of his name in full (and he always wrote Esquire and not Esq.) exactly describes him, with his peculiarity of greeting one with "_Oh_, I'm so glad to see you!" and with his usual signature "W.H.," which also he put on a medal for good conduct to youths, and gave my son one of those "W.H. medals." Now the words "Oh, Walter Hawkins, Esquire," makes anagrammatically, "W.H., who likes rare antiques!" exactly his idiosyncrasy as a man and a collector.

We all know how strangely "The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, M.P.," spells, "I am the Whig M.P. who'll be a traitor to England's rule:"--may it not prove to be prophetic. And still more strange is the fact that the words "William Ewart Gladstone" spell "Erin, we will go mad at last!" which seems only too likely. Another curious anagram is this,--in a far different vein: "Christmas comes but once a year," makes "So by Christ came a rescue to man." There's no end to these petty word miracles.

But to revert to our theme and to conclude it. As a West India merchant, Mr. Hawkins one day sent me down to Albury a hogshead of sugar and some sacks of rice, to be given (or, as he preferred it, sold at half price for honour's sake and not to pauperise) to my poorer neighbours for a Christmas gift. Well, to please him, I tried to sell, and only raised the rancour of the shopkeepers, who declared I was competing with them as a grocer: then I gave, with the same experience that soup charity had before taught me, to wit, that poor quarrelled with poorer, and both with me, for more or less given. So I was glad when it all came to an end. It is very difficult, as many a Lady Bountiful knows, to be charitable on a wide scale: _e.g._ once, in my country life, I tried to recommend brown bread and oatmeal; and got nothing by it but ill-will, as if wishing to starve the poor by denial of wheat-flour.

Most of us have been checked in such silly efforts to do good through forgetfulness of the fact that usually the poorest are the proudest.

Even the luxurious _debris_ of London Club kitchens must be flung into swill-barrels for pigs, because starving men and women will not demean themselves to ask for it at the b.u.t.tery-hatch. Moreover, that such are often extravagant too, everybody has found out--here's an instance: In my legal days, I now and then of course relieved poor folk, and sometimes pa.s.sed through Seven Dials: casually, I looked in upon an old couple to whom I had occasionally given a trifle, believing them to be near starvation; and I found them roasting a brace of partridges--or was it quails? for they were waistcoated with bacon,--and I had the charity to hope they had _not_ stolen them! Anyhow, I never called there again.

And, while I am in Seven Dials, let me record another useful small experience. There was a lapidary handy, who had at times cut my beach-found choanites for me. One day I found him making scarabaei out of bits of agate and lapis lazuli. "Who gave you an order for these," said I. "Well, sir, I don't rightly know his name; but he was a furriner."

"Was the name Signor----?" "That's it, sir." Then I set off straight to Sotheby's where I knew the Signor's Egyptian antiquities were soon to be sold, and duly forewarned the auctioneer of these forgeries. I need not detail how at the sale he put buyers on their guard, exposing the fraud, and condemning the peccant scarabaei to extinction. I wonder how many Grecian bronzes and copper Buddhas have been cast in Birmingham!

Yet another old friend for many years, so far literary in that he was a sculptor, is to be recorded in Joseph Durham: it was he who, more than thirty years ago, modelled in life and made in marble after death my beautiful three-year old daughter, little Alice, epitaphed in my poems.

Of Durham's n.o.bleness of character I can here give a charming trait. I used to go about once a week--sometimes less often--to Alfred Place to see how Durham was getting on with the statue (a sleeping infant), and one day, to my astonishment, I perceived that instead of any progress having been made in the work, it had, miraculously to me, retrograded; not half so near completion as it was last week. As I was wondering and perhaps not well pleased, Durham said, "I had hoped you would not call, till I had made it look as it did last week,--and then you needn't have known it." "Known what, friend?" "Well, only this; I came to a stain in the marble, and as I resolved you should have everything of the best,--I took another block, and have worked at it night and day, in hopes you wouldn't find me out. There's the other figure, under that cloth." Now, considering that the new block involved a cost of some twenty pounds,--and that the old one might have been artificially doctored, and that anyhow the risk and loss were equitably as much, mine as his,--and further that the young sculptor had little more than daily bread, if that,--I do say all this proves Durham to have been the n.o.ble fellow I found him to be for years. He is long gone, like so many other friends, to that Brighter World. His life-story in this was a touching one, as he told it to me; and I think known to very few besides myself. In youth he loved and was beloved; but friends and circ.u.mstances hindered; so she married some one else who, to Durham's constant horror and indignation, treated his wife brutally: till, one happy day, he died in some fit, probably from his own excesses. And then--here comes the sad climax--when Durham, having achieved fortune and fame, offered himself to his old love, the now rich widow, she deliberately turned away with a refusal, and broke his heart! Was it any wonder that his grief sometimes sought the solace of voluntary forgetfulness, or that certain false friends of his I wot of have in their teetotal Pharisaism made the evil most of an occasional infirmity, and have blackened even with printer's ink the memory of one of G.o.d's and Nature's true n.o.blemen! Besides my little daughter in marble (so charmingly asleep that, in the Royal Academy, we heard one lady whisper to another, Hush, don't talk so loud, you'll wake her!)--besides _that_, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, as I always think, he modelled the bust of her father, now in the Crystal Palace Gallery,--but would not accept any payment for it! So like Durham,--who in many secret ways was ever generous and trying to do good: he was always self-forgetful and only too modest. _Apropos_, I remember that when Lord Granville asked the sculptor of Prince Albert's statue at South Kensington "Whether the Queen, who was so well pleased, could do anything for him"--suggestive, no doubt, of a knighthood--the dear unselfish Durham replied, "Thank you, my Lord,--if her Majesty's pleased, I'm satisfied." So that chance for a t.i.tle was thrown heedlessly away,--but we always called him "Sir Joe" ever after: specially among the "Noviomagians," a band of antiquaries who used to dine together jovially at many pretended and picturesque sites of the undiscoverable Noviomagus, and among them I have met and numbered as my friends Chief Baron Pollok, George G.o.dwin, Francis Bennoch, Thomas Wright, Thornbury and Fairholt and other noted names, some of them still among the living.

It gave me great pleasure as a Guernseyman to have been chiefly accessory to a duplicate in bronze of the Good Prince's statue by Durham being set up at the Pierhead of St. Peter's Port. Interest was exerted by me to get royal permission for a new cast from the original, Government giving the metal of old cannons; a collection from house to house was made throughout the island, granite to any extent was on the spot, meetings were held, and I had the pleasure to see Durham's grand work inaugurated there, and to find him welcomed by all the "Sixties"--ay, and the "Forties" too--with the hospitality for which Sarnia was in those days proverbial.

In this brief record of my literary life, I ought not to ignore sundry true and constant book-friends known to me only by correspondence, and that in some cases through many years. I cannot touch them all, and shrink even from mentioning one or two, for fear of seeming to omit others; but I will endeavour to do my best and wisest in the matter.

Foremost, then, among those unseen favourers of your author is the Baroness Stanislas von Barnekow, of Engelholme, in Sweden; with whom during fifteen years I have interchanged certainly fifty letters, if not more, hers at least being full of the utmost kindliness, cleverness, and (for a foreigner) even truly poetic eloquence. This tribute to her talents and warm feelings is only a debt of grat.i.tude. She it was who voluntarily translated into Swedish my two first series of "Proverbial Philosophy," and many of my lyrics in "Cithara;" and naturally I was willing to answer her in kind (for the Baroness is an excellent and well-known poetess in her own land), but, as unfortunately the Swedish tongue is not among my few accomplishments, I was glad to turn to a diligent and authorial eldest daughter of mine, who learnt the language for me, and responded to our unseen friend with many of her poems rendered into English verse, as she had similarly favoured mine in Swedish. My said daughter afterwards improved upon the idea by several more like translations, since published in book-form, as some from the Sagas, and in particular many original poems of much merit from the pen of King Oscar and Princess Eugenie, which greatly pleased them, as their photographs and autographs testified; the Baroness's brother, Count Von Wrede, who is the King's Chamberlain, having kindly given facilities. I trust that my old "friend unseen," Stanislas, will not be displeased by this proof that I remember with appreciation her many expressions of esteem for my unworthiness.

Next, I do not know that I have mentioned the late learned Norman poet, _George Metivier_, as having long ago translated my "Proverbial Philosophy" into French; he died at a great age, I think past ninety, and was highly honoured by his native Guernsey, through life and death; I remember him with much grat.i.tude for his labour of love in respect of my book. Through many years also I have corresponded with another Norman poet, _John Sullivan_, whose very clever French poems I have often versified into English for him, and he has returned the compliment by sending translated fly-leaves of mine over the Gallic world.

Let one more in this authorial category be the excellent and learned _Canon R.C. Jenkins_, whom I have known from his childhood, and who in these latter years has routed out for me, chiefly out of Zedler's "Genealogical Encyclopaedia," the heraldry and ancestry of my own Thuringian pedigree; the Canon being one of our keenest antiquaries in that line, and having German at his fingers' ends. He comes, as I do, from old Lutheran stock, and is full both of prose and poetry of a high cla.s.s. My best regards to him and his.

The _Rev. Wm. Barnes_, of Dorset dialect fame, is another memory; as also in years past the late _Chevalier de Chatelain_, a relative of my Norwood friend, _Victor de Pontigny_, a well-known musical authority.

No doubt I have corresponded with most of the literary men of my day, from Tennyson to--well, I will not sound a bathos, but I do not publish private notes without permission, and in fact there would be no end of such printed amenities of literature battledored and shuttlec.o.c.ked from one to another. I may, however, mention as a good habit of mine (is it not a good one?) that, whenever I like a book, I take leave to thank its author, and have usually received, _en revanche_, warm letters of their grat.i.tude from many, especially if young ones. Surely it is proper in a veteran so to encourage a juvenile or even a mature brother, should he seem to deserve it. As also, be it known, that sometimes I have taken up the pen faithfully and honestly to rebuke: in these realistic and atheistic days there are some modern writers, both of prose and poetry, older or younger, who have reason to thank me for timely expostulations,--if they have attended to my friendly strictures.