endship, never bought or sold,
Give me assurance thou wilt always look
With kindness still on Spirits of humbler mould;
Kept firm by resting on that wondrous book,
Wherein the Dream of Life is all unrolled."

Forster's library was filled with treasures, and he brought to the
dinner-table, the day I was first with him, such rare and costly
manuscripts and annotated volumes to show us, that one's appetite for
"made dishes" was quite taken away. The excellent lady whom he afterward
married was one of the guests, and among the gentlemen present I
remember the brilliant author of "The Bachelor of the Albany," a book
that was then the Novel sensation in London. Forster flew from one topic
to another with admirable skill, and entertained us with anecdotes of
Wellington and Rogers, gilding the time with capital imitations of his
celebrated contemporaries in literature and on the stage. A touch about
Edmund Kean made us all start from our chairs and demand a mimetic
repetition. Forster must have been an excellent private actor, for he
had power and skill quite exceptional in that way. His force carried him
along wherever he chose to go, and when he played "Kitely," his ability
must have been strikingly apparent. After his marriage, and when he
removed from Lincoln's Inn to his fine residence at "Palace-Gate House,"
he gave frequent readings, evincing remarkable natural and acquired
talents. For Dickens he had a love amounting to jealousy. He never quite
relished anybody else whom the great novelist had a fondness for, and I
have heard droll stories touching this weakness. For Professor Felton he
had unbounded regard, which had grown up by correspondence and through
report from Dickens. He had never met Felton, and when the professor
arrived in London, Dickens, with his love of fun, arranged a bit of
cajolery, which was never quite forgotten, though wholly forgiven.
Knowing how highly Forster esteemed Felton, through his writings and his
letters, Dickens resolved to take Felton at once to Forster's house and
introduce him as _Professor Stowe_, the _port_ of both these gentlemen
being pretty nearly equal. The Stowes were then in England on their
triumphant tour, and this made the attempt at deception an easy one. So,
Felton being in the secret, he and Dickens proceed to Forster's house
and are shown in. Down comes Forster into the library, and is presented
forthwith to "_Professor Stowe_." "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is at