he got better from that hour. Charles Dickens bears eloquent testimony to his gentle, affectionate nature, regard for friends, and fondness for children, and tells a pleasant story of his reconciliation with him after an estrangement.

'A good many months had passed without my even seeing him in the street, when it fell out that we dined, each with his own separate party, in the Strangers' Room of a club. Our chairs were almost back to back, and I took mine after he was seated and at dinner. I said not a word (I am sorry to remember), and did not look that way. Before we had sat so long, he openly wheeled his chair round, stretched out both his hands in a most engaging manner, and said aloud, with a bright and loving face that I can see as I write to you, "For God's sake, let us be friends again! A life's not long enough for this!"'

The glimpses we get of Jerrold at home and among his friends almost all exhibit him in an amiable light. His son describes an afternoon in the garden of West Lodge, Putney, when grave editors and contributors, after basting one another with knotted handkerchiefs, wound up the afternoon's play by romping and turning heels over head among the haycocks in the orchard. And on another occasion, after a dinner-party in the garden tent, all the guests, including Dickens, Maclise, Macready, and John Forster, indulged in a most hilarious game at leap-frog. Jerrold could never learn to play any game requiring manual skill, nor to dance, nor to ride a horse, any more than he could carve a

joint, draw a straight line, or even draw a cork. But he was fond of music, and could sing a capital song on occasion; and his free boyish spirit, and loud, clear laugh, were remarkable to the end of his life. He disliked noisy London, and loved to live on the very edge of the suburbs, where he could always see a bit of green,' and go about in a jacket and straw hat. At home he always adhered to what he called simple country fare; and even in clubs he disliked elaborate dinners, liveried servants, and other conventional luxuries; and he never sought to get himself into what is called Society. But he was one of the most clubbable of men; and the Mulberries, the Museum, the Hooks and Eyes, Our Club, and other such long-vanished institutions always looked to Jerrold to lead the fun. Unfortunately the most brilliant of after-dinner talk has usually no more sparkle in it when served up to a succeeding generation than have the leavings of last night's soda-water bottles. A writer's fame must rest upon his writings; and it cannot be contended that Jerrold was one of the great artists. But the four closely-printed volumes into which the best of his work has been compressed form a very storehouse of quaint conceit and burnished epigram. Much of it is too pyrotechnical for steady and continuous reading, but all of it is good to dip into now and again, both for pleasure and for profit.

A PURITAN POET

It

JOHN BRIGHT is reported to have said to a friend, ‘If you come across a quotation in any speech of mine that you don't recognise, it is probably Wither.' is possible that to some of his friends the name might have been as unfamiliar as the quotations; they may even have taken it as a misprint for Whittier. Yet George Wither was a person of no inconsiderable note in his day, and among the voluminous writings which he has left behind him are several passages of rare grace and beauty. His career as an author commenced in 1613, the year which witnessed the production of the last of Shakespeare's dramatic creations, and it only terminated with his death in 1667, the year following the great fire of London. He may be said to have outlived his own fame. Pope refers to him in The Dunciad as wretched Wither,' sleeping 'among the dull of ancient days, safe where no critics damn'; but he was in Pope's time only remembered as a renegade cavalier who, like all renegades, was extremely bitter against his old party. Ritson, the crusty collector of old ballads, called him the English Bavius, and the more genial Bishop Percy merely says that 'he distinguished himself in youth by some pastoral pieces