The memory of the deep personal
interest which he took in the poems, his delight in being their
publisher, his fondness for reciting them, is and ever will be to
me indescribably touching; such experiences being rare in any
life. He was an immensely general and yet thorough scholar, and
I am certain that I never met with any man in my life who to such
an extensive bibliographical knowledge added so much familiarity
with the contents of books. And he was familiar with nothing
which did not interest him, which is rare indeed among men who
MUST know something of thousands of works -- in fact, he was a
wonderful and very original book in himself, which, if it had
ever been written out and published, would have never died. His
was one of the instances which give the world good cause to
regret that the art of autobiography is of all others the one
least taught or studied. There are few characters more
interesting than those in which the practical man of business is
combined with the scholar, because of the contrasts, or varied
play of light and shadow, in them, and this was, absolutely to
perfection, that of Mr.
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