dearly I do love him, legislation and _all that_ apart; and yet, if
there ever was a woman peculiarly prone to love and admire a man for his
public affections and public usefulness, I do say I am that she, and
that I could not love a paragon of beauty, wit, and private kindness, if
he looked on the good or ill being of mankind with indifference or
scorn, or with anti-social feelings. Think of the divine old man growing
a sort of vetch in his garden to cram his pockets with for the deer in
Kensington Garden. I remember his pointing it out to me, and telling me
the '_virtuous deer_' were fond of it, and ate it out of his hand. I
could have kissed his feet; it was the feeling of a kind,
tender-hearted, loving child."

He had another pet, almost a rival on some special occasions for Mrs.
Austin. It was a large sleepy-looking tomcat, very black, and of a most
uncommon seriousness of deportment. The philosopher treated him with
great consideration, I might almost say reverence, and called him
Doctor,--but whether an LL. D., a D. D., or only an M. D., I never
clearly understood, though I have a faint recollection, that, on the
happening of some event in which Tom bore a part, he accounted for the
deference he showed, by calling him the Reverend Doctor somebody. Like
Byron, too, he once had a pet bear; but he was in Russia at the time,
and the wolves got into the poor creature's box, on a terrible winter's
night, and carried off a part of his face, a depredation which the
philosopher never forgot nor forgave to his dying day. He always kept a
supply of stale bread in the drawer of his dining-table for the
"mousies."

When he introduced me to Mr. Joseph Hume, the great penny-wise and
pound-foolish reformer, he begged me to bear in mind that he was _only_
a Scotchman, or "no better than a Scotchman"; and he once gave me an
open letter to the celebrated philanthropist, Dr. Southwood Smith, which
he asked me to read before it was delivered. I did so, and found that he
wished the Doctor to know that I had been at Queen-Square Place a long
while, and that, so far as he knew I had neither told lies nor stolen
spoons. Of course I delivered the letter, leaving Dr. Smith to take the
consequences, if any silver should be missed after I left him.

And, by the way, this reminds me that this very Dr. Smith was the
individual to whom he bequeathed his body, with certain directions,
which appear to have been carried out to the very letter,