The Commemorative Medal.

319

and illustrious life."* Of the medal, an engraved representation of which we are privileged to lay before our readers (see page 321), silver and bronze copies were struck for the use of the subscribers, with a few for presentation to public institutions; the copy sent for Carlyle's acceptance was in gold.

In the opening months of the same year which brought this beautiful and solemn tribute at its close, the wonderful old man had published what was to be his penultimate work. Without the slightest preliminary notice, the January number of his first friend in time of need, Fraser's Magazine, gave the initial instalment of the Early Kings of Norway; and the brilliant little series

:

* This document was subscribed by the following friends :Thomas Aird, William Allingham, Alex. Bain, Thos. S. Baynes, John S. Blackie, J. E. Boehm, W. Boxall, Wm. Brodie, R.S.A. ; John Brown, M.D.; Robert Browning, John Caird, Edward Caird, H. Calderwood, Lewis Campbell, Robert Carruthers, Edwin Chadwick, Fred. Chapman, Henry Cole, Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable, Henry Cowper, George Lillie Craik, D. M. Craik, Francis Cunningham, Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, J. Llewelyn Davies, James Donaldson, David Douglas, Edward Dowden, George Eliot, Edward Fitzgerald, Percy Fitzgerald, Robert Flint, John Forster, W. E. Forster, Robert Were Fox, A. C. Fraser, Richard Garnett, Ad. Gifford, John Gordon, A. Grant, John Richard Green, Alex. B. Grosart, George Grove, William Hanna, R. Palmer Harding, T. Duffus Hardy, Frederick Harrison, Robert Herdman, R.S.A.; W. B. Hodgson, Jos. D. Hooker, Robert Horn, Thomas Hughes, Thos. H. Huxley, Alexander Ireland, William Jack, R. C. Jebb, David Laing, Samuel Lawrence, Arthur Laurenson, W. E. H. Lecky, G. H. Lewes, J. Norman Lockyer, John Lubbock, E. L. Lushington, Godfrey Lushington, Vernon Lushington, Lyttelton, Æ. J. J. Mackay, Alexander Macmillan, Henry S. Maine, Theodore Martin, Helena Faucit Martin, Harriet Martineau, David Masson, William Stirling Maxwell, Henry Morley, John Morley, Chas. Edward Mudie, F. Max Muller, Charles Neaves, M. O. W. Oliphant,

of anonymous sketches were carried on and completed in the February and March numbers. Three years after their appearance, the editor of the magazine incidentally referred to the curious circumstance that, when these papers appeared, only one of the critics detected the authorship; and we may be permitted to claim whatever of credit belongs to that exception, though to us it was indeed a marvel, not merely that we stood alone in this matter, but that every person whom we were able to consult had grave doubts on the subject, even the most intelligent regarding the sketches as no more than a good imitation of the master's style. To us it seemed that but one hand in England could have penned even the brief business-like, preliminary statement as to the original sources from which the substance of the notes had been derived. Some of the critics ascribed the work to Mr Froude; and when the belief we hazarded was at length confirmed, the same guides hastened to express the opinion that the work exhibited signs of senility. Unfortunately for them it soon transpired that, instead of being a product of the author's old age, it had in reality been written many years before he handed the manuscript for publication to his friend Mr Allingham, at that time

Eliza Andrews Orme, Richard Owen, Noel Paton, W. F. Pollock, Richard Quain, M.D.; Henry Reeve, Mary Rich, Alexander Russel, J. R. Seeley, W. Y. Sellar, Henry Sidgwick, Samuel Spalding, James Spedding, W. Spottiswoode, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, J. F. Stephen, Leslie Stephen, J. Hutchison Stirling, Susan Stirling, Patrick D. Swan, Tom Taylor, W. Cowper-Temple, A. Tennyson, Anne Isabella Thackeray, W. H. Thompson, George Otto Trevelyan, Anthony Trollope, John Tulloch, John Tyndall, J. Veitch, G. S. Venables, A. W. Ward, Hensleigh Wedgwood, F. E. Hensleigh Wedgwood, W. Aldis Wright.

The Last Fruit off the Old Tree.

321

the able editor of Fraser. In the same year he published in the same magazine a paper which, unlike the Norse sketches, had been newly written. The Portraits of John Knox was the last fruit off the old tree; and the vivid sketch of the great Reformer from the pen of the venerable octogenarian proved that his hand had lost none of its cunning, while it deepened the sorrow that this vignette was all we were ever to get from that hand on the same subject.

By permission, from the Medal by J. E. Bochm, Esq., A.R.A.

X