How Purnell managed to break through the icy wall
that surrounded the recluse always puzzled me; but I suppose they
must have come across one another at one of those pleasant inns in
the north of London where 'the scholar' was taking his chop and
bottle of Beaune. He was a man that never made new friends, and as
one after another of his old friends died he was left so entirely
alone that, I think, he saw no one except Mr. Swinburne, the author
of _Aylwin_, and myself. But at Christmas he always spent a week at
'The Pines,' when and where my father and I used to meet him. His
memory was so powerful that he seemed to be able to recall not only
all that he had read, but the very conversations in which he had
taken a part. He died, I think, at a little over eighty, and his
faculties up to the last were exactly like those of a man in the
prime of life. He always reminded me of Charles Lamb's description
of George Dyer.

Such is my outside picture of this extraordinary man; and it is only
of externals that I am free to speak here, even if I were competent
to touch upon his inner life. He was a still greater recluse than
the 'Philip Aylwin' of the novel. I think I am right in saying that
he took up one or two Oriental tongues when he was seventy years of
age. Another of his passions was numismatics, and it was in these
studies that he sympathized with the author of _Aylwin's_ friend, the
late Lord de Tabley. I remember one story of his peculiarities which
will give an idea of the kind of man he was. He had a brother who was
the exact opposite of him in every way--strikingly good-looking, with
great charm of mariner and _savoir faire_, but with an ordinary
intellect and a very superficial knowledge of literature, or, indeed,
anything else, except records of British military and naval
exploits--where he was really learned. Being full of admiration of
his student brother, and having a parrot-like instinct for mimicry,
he used to talk with great volubility upon all kinds of subjects
wherever he went, and repeat in the same words what he had been
listening to from his brother, until at last he got to be called the
'walking encyclopedia.' The result was that he got the reputation of
being a great reader and an original thinker, while the true student
and book-lover was frequently complimented on the way in which he
took after his learned brother. This did not in the least annoy the
real student, it simply amused him, and he would