nce a chief of _Punch_, who acted
Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most
exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in
his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously
attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old
friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year
after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry.
_Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man
does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having
been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I
sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein
he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at
Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my
Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he
adjured me "_not_ to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his
face with his hands. "What's the matter, friend?" "_I_ wrote all these,"
added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it
again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one
too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,--it sells my books,
besides--'I'se Maw-worm,--I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very
good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and
the good fellow never did--so have I lost my most telling advertisement.
I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late _Frank
Smedley_,--a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful
mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences
as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed--from his
invalid chair--"the dances and delights" he could not take part in; and
one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just
come from a wedding-breakfast,--"rehearsing, rehearsing," he laughingly
shouted. Poor fellow,--the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived
strapped and banded with steel springs,--but as a gracious compensation
Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and
added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking
forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however
slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me
among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with _J.G. Wood_,