Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is _Rogers_, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St. James's Place; _Carlyle_, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;--after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, "And good be with you!"
It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.
Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited _Haweis_, the eloquent preacher of St. James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder. This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of campanology. And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great _Tennyson_ at Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden fence, which "Yankees" climb to have a look at him. _Browning_ also, _tantum vidi_, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. _Mortimer Collins_ has given us "a happy day" at Albury, coming in _à pied poudre_ on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! _Dickens_ I have met several times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son _Charles_ also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in _Household Words_ are from the pen of my youngest daughter. _Richard Owen_, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, _Godwin Austen_, the geologist; and I have met _Pengelly_, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and _Dr. Bowerbank_, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, _Stephen Mackenzie_, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. _Matthew Arnold_ also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and _Shirley Brooks_, _Albert Smith_, and _Mark Lemon_, once a chief of _Punch_, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. _Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he adjured me "_not_ to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his face with his hands.