that any one was the worse, in the
long run, either; and there have been Pecksniffs of whom as much could
hardly be affirmed. There is, however, an anecdote of Hall which my
father tells, and seems to have credited; if it be true, it would appear
that once at least in his life he could hardly have implored the Throne
of Grace for a blessing on the deeds of the day. "He told me," writes my
father, "(laughing at the folly of the affair, but, nevertheless, fully
appreciating his own chivalry) how he and Charles Lever, about ten years
since, had been on the point of fighting a duel. The quarrel was made
up, however, and they parted good friends, Lever returning to Ireland,
whence Mr. Hall's challenge had summoned him." I suspect good Mr. Hall
must have once more appropriated somebody else's adventure; it was not
in the heat of youth that the bloody-minded and unchristian episode is
supposed to have occurred, but when Mr. Hall was in his forty-seventh
year.

Durham, the sculptor, was a lifelong friend of Bennoch's, and was often
in my father's company, and he manifested a friendly feeling towards my
father's son long afterwards. He was a man of medium height, compactly
built, with slightly curling hair, and a sympathetic, abstracted
expression of countenance. He was at this time making a bust of Queen
Victoria, and he told us that it was contrary to court etiquette for her
Majesty, during these sittings, to address herself directly to him,
or, of course, for him directly to address her; they must communicate
through the medium of the lady-in-waiting. The Queen, however, said
Durham, sometimes broke through this rule, and so did the sculptor,
the democracy of art, it would seem, enabling them to surmount the
obligation to filter through the mind of a third person all such remarks
as they might wish to make to each other. Durham also said that when
the bust was nearly finished the Queen proposed that a considerable
thickness of the clay should be removed from the model, which was done.
The bust, as an ideal work, was thereby much improved, but the likeness
to her Majesty was correspondingly diminished. Years afterwards I
was talking with W. G. Wills, the painter and dramatist, a delightful
Irishman of the most incorrigibly republican and bohemian type. He had,
a little while before, been giving lessons in painting to the Princess
Louise, who married the Marquis of Lorne, and who was, herself,
exceptionally emancipated for a r