day before his death,
it was only necessary to introduce them by a short sketch of his early
life in order to make the narrative complete.

FitzGerald's letters, like his conversation, were perfectly unaffected
and full of quiet humour. In his lonely life they were the chief means
he had of talking with his friends, and they were always welcome. In
reply to one of them Carlyle wrote: 'Thanks for your friendly human
letter; which gave us much entertainment in the reading (at breakfast
time the other day), and is still pleasant to think of. One gets so many
_in_human letters, ovine, bovine, porcine, etc., etc.: I wish you would
write a little oftener; when the beneficent Daimon suggests, fail not to
lend ear to him.' Another, who has since followed him 'from sunshine to
the sunless land,' and to whom he wrote of domestic affairs, said, 'The
striking feature in his correspondence with me is the exquisite
tenderness of feeling which it exhibits in regard to all family matters;
the letters might have been written by a mother or a sister.' He said of
himself that his friendships were more like loves, and as he was constant
in affectionate loyalty to others, he might also say with Brutus,

In all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.

The Poet-Laureate, on hearing of his death, wrote to the late Sir
Frederic Pollock: 'I had no truer friend: he was one of the kindliest of
men, and I have never known one of so fine and delicate a wit. I had
written a poem to him the last week, a dedication, which he will never
see.'

When Thackeray, not long before he died, was asked by his daughter which
of his old friends he had loved most, he replied, 'Why, dear old Fitz, to
be sure; and Brookfield.'

And Carlyle, quick of eye to discern the faults and weaknesses of others,
had nothing but kindliness, with perhaps a touch of condescension, 'for
the peaceable, affectionate, and ultra-modest man, and his innocent _far
niente_ life.'

It was something to have been intimate with three such friends, and one
can only regret that more of his letters addressed to them have not been
preserved. Of those written to the earliest and dearest friend of all,
James Spedding, not one is left.

One of his few surviving contemporaries, speaking from a lifelong
experience, described him with perfect truth as an eccentric man of
genius, who took more pains to avoid fame than others do to seek it.

His love of music was one