echan, from which place I have, or had, several letters
dated by him. I think it was fine that he should anticipate all
Westminster Abbey honours, and determine to be laid where he was born,
among his own kindred, and with all the simple and dignified obsequies of
(I suppose) his own old Puritan Church. The Care of his Posthumous
Memory will be left in good hands, I believe, if in those of Mr. Froude.
His Niece, who had not answered a Note of Enquiry I wrote her some two
months ago, answered it a few days after his Death: she had told him, she
said, of my letter, and he said, 'You must answer that.'

_To Mrs. Kemble_.

[_March_, 1881].

MY DEAR LADY,

It was very, very good and kind of you to write to me about Spedding.
Yes: Aldis Wright had apprised me of the matter just after it happened,
he happening to be in London at the time; and but two days after the
accident heard that Spedding was quite calm, and even cheerful; only
anxious that Wright himself should not be kept waiting for some
communication that S. had promised him! Whether to live, or to die, he
will be Socrates still.

Directly that I heard from Wright, I wrote to Mowbray Donne to send me
just a Post Card daily, if he or his Wife could, with but one or two
words on it, 'Better,' 'Less well,' or whatever it might be. This
morning I hear that all is going on even better than could be expected,
according to Miss Spedding. But I suppose the Crisis, which you tell me
of, is not yet come; and I have always a terror of that French Adage,
'Monsieur se porte mal--Monsieur se porte mieux--Monsieur est--!' Ah,
you know, or you guess, the rest.

My dear old Spedding, though I have not seen him these twenty years and
more, and probably should never see again; but he lives, his old Self, in
my heart of hearts; and all I hear of him does but embellish the
recollection of him, if it could be embellished; for he is but the same
that he was from a Boy, all that is best in Heart and Head, a man that
would be incredible had one not known him.

I certainly should have gone up to London, even with Eyes that will
scarce face the lamps of Woodbridge, not to see him, but to hear the
first intelligence I could about him. But I rely on the Post-card for
but a Night's delay. Laurence, Mowbray tells me, had been to see him,
and found him as calm as had been reported by Wright. But the Doctors
had said that he should be kept as quiet as possible.

I think, from what