ogy
and occultism. He knew more, I think, of those strange writers
discussed in Vaughan's _Hours with the Mystics_ than any other
person--including, perhaps, Vaughan himself; but he managed to
combine with his love of Mysticism a deep passion for the physical
sciences, especially astronomy. He seemed to be learning languages up
to almost the last year of his life. His method of learning languages
was the opposite of that of George Borrow, that is to say, he made
great use of grammars; and when he died it is said that from four to
five hundred treatises on grammar were found among his books. He used
to express great contempt for Borrow's method of learning languages
from dictionaries only.

[Footnote: He was Mr. Watts-Dunton's uncle--Mr. James Orlando Watts.]

I do not think that any one connected with literature--with the
exception of Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. Swinburne, my father, and Dr. R.
G. Latham--knew so much of him as I did. His personal appearance was
exactly like that of 'Philip Aylwin,' as described in the novel.
Although he never wrote poetry, he translated, I believe, a good deal
from the Spanish and Portuguese poets. I remember that he was an
extraordinary admirer of Shelley. His knowledge of Shakespeare and
the Elizabethan dramatists was a link between him and Mr. Swinburne.

At a time when I was a busy reader at the British Museum
Reading-Room, I used frequently to see him, and he never seemed to
know any one among the readers except myself, and whenever he spoke
to me it was always in a hushed whisper, lest he should disturb the
other readers, which in his eyes would have been a heinous offence.
For very many years he had been extremely well known to the
second-hand booksellers, for he was a constant purchaser of their
wares. He was a great pedestrian, and, being very much attached to
the north of London, would take long, slow tramps ten miles out in
the direction of Highgate, Wood Green, etc. I have a very distinct
recollection of calling upon him in Myddelton Square at the time when
I was living close to him in Percy Circus. Books were piled up from
floor to ceiling, apparently in great confusion, but he seemed to
remember where to find every book and what there was in it. It is a
singular fact that the only person outside those I have mentioned who
seems to have known him was that brilliant but eccentric journalist,
Thomas Purnell, who had an immense opinion of him and used to call
him 'the scholar.'