inal, I believe, still hangs,
framed, in the Secretary's room at the hospital; and as I think it
likely to be interesting, as a specimen of the Duke's epistolary powers
and peculiarities, I append a copy:

"Strathfield Saye, Dec. 11, 1842.

"F.M. the Duke of Wellington presents his Compliments to Mr. Cox and
regrets much that his time is so much occupied that it is impossible
for him to be able to find leisure to attend to the duties of the
office of a Steward of a Ball. He hopes, therefore that he will be
excused for declining to be nominated to fill an office the duties
of which he cannot undertake to perform.

"W. Sands Cox, Eqre."

The last time I saw Mr. Cox, in connection with these institutions,
was in 1862, at the time of the great bazaar on behalf of the
hospital. It was a hard week's work for many, and it resulted in a
profit of about L3,500. Mr. Cox's homely figure during that week, was
"here, there, and everywhere," encouraging everybody, and assisting in
every way, even to helping the college porter to carry large and heavy
hampers of goods across the street from the college to the Town Hall.
I have a perfect remembrance of his sitting, on the last day of the
bazaar, with another gentleman, in the ticket office, to receive the
sixpenny fees for admission. I recollect then to have seen again
the strange, miserly expression which had struck me at my first
introduction; and I noticed, too, the eager "clutch," with which he
grasped the money as it came in, and how he chuckled with delight as
he made up into brown paper parcels each pound's worth of silver as
it accumulated. How, too, his eyes twinkled; how he rubbed his hands
backwards and forwards over his mouth, as he jerked out "Another
pound, Mr. ----; I believe we shall get L50"; and how, when the doors
were closed, he triumphantly handed over to the treasurer more than
sixty packets, of L1 each, as the result of the sixpences paid for
admission on that one day.

Unfortunately, his mind was _creative_ only. Like many parents, who
never can be brought to understand that there comes a time when their
children are _mentally_ capable of "running alone," he, in his later
years, failed to see that these two institutions, the children of his
brain, no longer required leading strings, or his _unaided_ nursing.
Hence, as the establishments grew beyond his personal power of
supervision, he became jealous of everyone connected wi