p." The schoolmate
of Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel at Harrow, the friend and companion of
Keats, Lamb, Shelley, Coleridge, Landor, Hunt, Talfourd, and Rogers, the
man to whom Thackeray "affectionately dedicated" his "Vanity Fair," one
of the kindest souls that ever gladdened earth, has now joined the great
majority of England's hallowed sons of song. No poet ever left behind
him more fragrant memories, and he will always be thought of as one whom
his contemporaries loved and honored. No harsh word will ever be spoken
by those who have known him of the author of "Marcian Colonna,"
"Mirandola," "The Broken Heart," and those charming lyrics which rank
the poet among the first of his class. His songs will be sung so long as
music wedded to beautiful poetry is a requisition anywhere. His verses
have gone into the Book of Fame, and such pieces as "Touch us gently,
Time," "Send down thy winged Angel, God," "King Death," "The Sea," and
"Belshazzar is King," will long keep his memory green. Who that ever
came habitually into his presence can forget the tones of his voice, the
tenderness in his gray retrospective eyes, or the touch of his
sympathetic hand laid on the shoulder of a friend! The elements were
indeed so kindly mixed in him that no bitterness or rancor or jealousy
had part or lot in his composition. No distinguished person was ever
more ready to help forward the rising and as yet nameless literary man
or woman who asked his counsel and warm-hearted suffrage. His mere
presence was sunshine to a new-comer into the world of letters and
criticism, for he was always quick to encourage, and slow to disparage
anybody. Indeed, to be _human_ only entitled any one who came near him
to receive the gracious bounty of his goodness and courtesy. He made it
the happiness of his life never to miss, whenever opportunity occurred,
the chance of conferring pleasure and gladness on those who needed kind
words and substantial aid.

[Footnote *: October, 1874.]

His equals in literature venerated and loved him. Dickens and Thackeray
never ceased to regard him with the deepest feeling, and such men as
Browning and Tennyson and Carlyle and Forster rallied about him to the
last. He was the delight of all those interesting men and women who
habitually gathered around Rogers's famous table in the olden time, for
his manner had in it all the courtesy of genius, without any of that
chance asperity so common in some literary circles. The shynes