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Shelley's companion at the time. The following letter written by him to Hunt, when the object of their search was painfully accomplished, will give some idea of his terrible loss:

"DEAR HUNT, — Will you break the news by writing to. I could have borne up against anything but this; but this last heavy blow has unmanned and overwhelmed me. I have felt some relief in your sympathy, or I could not have gone through in this new trial before me; it has awoken me from the morbid state of despair I have been in since hope left me for the dreadful certainty that I have lost all which made existence to me endurable - nay, a pleasure. All my feelings of friendship and affection were kept alive and concentrated in them, and are buried with them. Henceforth, I will shun all such ties; but it is needless, for I shall never again meet such beings to call them forth. Yours,

"EDWARD TRELAWNY."

If agony of mind could "unman" Trelawny, it does not appear that physical pain had power to do so. Robert Brown ing, who travelled to Leghorn some time after, mainly, as he says, to speak with the man who had "known Byron, and seen the last of Shelley," records his amazement at Trelawny's marvellous indifference to bodily suffering the operations of a surgeon who, during the greater part of the interview between them, was engaged in probing for a bullet in Trelawny's leg, not appearing in the least to disconcert him, or to interrupt the conversation upon indifferent subjects that proceeded during almost all the time.

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The fortunes and vicissitudes of Italy in her struggles for liberty and freedom were at all times a matter of the most profound interest to Leigh Hunt. I have heard that fervent hopes for her well-being and prosperity were mingled with his last earthly thoughts. It was probably during his stay in the South that he became known to Joseph Mazzini, a letter from whom is given below. One is struck with the marvellous command of English displayed by the Italian, and may be the less surprised that the enthusiastic addresses to his fellow-countrymen, passionately poured forth in his native tongue, should have struck so deep and wide-sounding a note. The handwriting is very quaint and not easy to decipher.

"DEAR SIR, I know that the Address of the International League' has been sent to you with a wish that you should give your name to the Council of Association. Should the aim of the League be an exclusively English one, I would not venture to meddle, or speak a word about it.

To Shelley's funeral pyre Leigh Hunt tells us he added a little volume of Keats (The Lamia, etc.) which he himself had lent him only a few days previously, and which was found open in his coat-pocket when the catastrophe occurred which was to startle and horrify the world. Keats's poetry was greatly admired by Shelley and Hunt (as readers of the former's "Adonais and the latter's "Imagination and Fancy" can testify) and was a frequent subject of discussion between them. Shelley's beautiful description of the Prot estant burial-ground at Rome, where the "Fallen nations, like fallen individuals, body of Keats was laid, will be remem-rise only through love and esteem. bered; strange chance that the same spot should be afterwards destined to receive his own remains!

Of Keats's letters to Hunt I have several, but as I believe them to have been already published in some form or other I

"But its aim is, in its substance, European, and its existence will prove, I fully know, of great importance amongst others to my own country. Every token of sym-. pathy from foreign countries, and especially from England, imparts strength to our National party.

Your

name is known to many of my countrymen; it would no doubt impart an additional value to the thoughts embodied in the League. It is the name, not only of a patriot, but of a high literary man and a poet. It would show at once that national

questions are questions not of merely political tendencies, but of feeling, eternal trust, and godlike poetry. It would show that poets understand their active mission here down, and that they are also prophets and apostles of things to come.

"I was told only to-day that you had been asked to be a member of the League's Council, and felt a want to express the joy that I too would feel at your assent. "Believe me, dear sir, ever faithfully yours, JOSEPH MAZZINI.”

writing it, though spoken good-byes are sad. I wish, with all my heart, we had seen you, or been able to go and see you. It was impossible a week or two ago, when my wife returned from the country tired and unwell: and afterwards business kept us both at home. I wish I had neglected business and shaken your hand once again. Next year will not be too late, however, to repair many omissions. We hope to return and find you as we found you just so, except that your health may be amended, and that of Mrs. Hunt restored.

To return to England, where the family took up a temporary abode at Highgate, seems, in spite of many pleasurable impressions of the sojourn abroad (mingled, unfortunately with some mournful ones), to have afforded unmixed satisfaction. He finishes one chapter of the autobiog-poems are done, and effectually. raphy, after eulogizing the brightness and beauty of Italian women, by saying: "It

Nay, I will wish' as gloriously as a child, for more exquisite poems beside, such as pull off the wishing-cap. But of the two those you last gave us, and after that, I blessings I choose your health, for the

was a blessed moment, nevertheless, when we found ourselves among those dear sulky faces- - the countrywomen of dearer ones, not sulky. May we never be without our old fields again in this world, or the 'old familiar faces' in this world, or in the Dext."

Of Browning's acquaintance with Hunt I can find little trace; yet there must have been an intimacy of some sort between them, if one may judge by the following

affectionate words from both husband and wife which lie before me, and of which I give Mrs. Browning's first.

39 Devonshire Place, Saturday. "MY DEAR MR. HUNT, I heard from Mr. - yesterday that there was a chance for us, for one day in the coming week. Shall it be Tuesday? What pleasure we shall have on Tuesday, in that case!

"We shall hope for it, at least - and we may certainly besides be very glad that you are practically loosed from the bonds of your anxiety about Mrs. Hunt.

"Let me remain, with affectionate thoughts from both of us,

"Your grateful

"ELIZABETH B. BROWNING. "And when you come I will try to correct the carelessness of the bookseller in respect to the books."

From among several of Browning's letters which I have, I select the following:

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"My wife's new edition will reach you directly; it lay at the publisher's and I reclaimed it but the paper was thin, the early copy was but a bundle of 'revises.'

"The new book will follow in about three weeks, and we should be happy indeed if you saw an advance there.

"Is it safe and right, or seemingly impudent if I add that a word thrown into the post without further formality to R. or E. B. B. Florence, would make our hearts leap beyond most good news? I am bold to write this for my wife's sake, you can understand.

"She sends all of love and admiration that a letter can pretend to carry, and you are assured of their sincerity by

"Your ever affectionate and grateful "ROBERT BROWNING."

Charles Dickens to Leigh Hunt, and I I have already given a letter from now transcribe two more slight in themselves but interesting in their difference in style, betraying so evidently that they proceed from "the pen of a ready writer."

"I Devonshire Terrace, Third January, 1843. "MY DEAR HUNT, - Next Friday, Twelfth Night, is the anniversary of my son and heir's birthday; on which occa sion a Magic Lantern and divers other engines are going to be let off on these premises.

"I have asked some children of a larger and make merry on their own account. If growth (all of whom you know) to come you be well enough to join us, and will do so by half-past seven, you will give my wife and myself great pleasure, and (I think I may predict) Leigh Hunt no pain. Always faithfully your friend,

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CHARLES DICKENS.

"P.S.-I fancied there was the slightest | ing been so consumedly occupied with possible peculiarity in your speech last business, and with Jollification subsenight. Just an elaborate show of distinct- quently, in these latter days. nessa remarkably correct delivery - an exquisite appreciation of the beauty of the language, with the faintest smack of wine running through it. This was mere fancy, I suppose?'

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"We have had supper parties, singing parties, dinner parties, headaches, rather, in the morning, &c. But the week_must not pass over without saying Hail to Leigh Hunt!

66 Last week we were to have met at the

Procters', but I forgot and you were ill. Can we not meet anywhere this week? For instance, to-morrow at five, there will be two woodcocks, presented by Mr. J. O'Connell, and you shall have a bit or not as you like, and with or without an answer. "My dear Hunt, I wish you an H.N.Y. "Yours ever,

"W. M. THACKERAY."

"Tavistock House, Friday, Fourth May, 1855. "MY DEAR HUNT, I have been so constantly engaged and occupied since I came home from Paris, that I have never (as you know) got to your teapot, though I have very often (as you don't know) paved tiful, clear, well-known handwriting, are the road to Hammersmith with good in-headed with neither date nor address, and are unpunctuated throughout.

tentions.

The few lines which follow in the beau

"I am now, to boot, in the wandering
unsettled restless uncontroullable" MY DEAR HUNT, —

[sic] state of being about to begin a new
book. At such a time I am as infirm of
pur.
pose as Macbeth, as errant as Mad Tom,
and as rugged as Timon. I sit down to
work, do nothing, get up and walk a dozen
miles, come back and sit down again next
day, again do nothing and get up, go down
a Railroad, find a place where I resolve to
stay for a month, come home next morn-
ing, go strolling about for hours and hours,
reject all engagements to have my time to
myself, get tired of myself, and yet can't
come out of myself to be pleasant to any
body else.

"In which disjointed state I am afraid to trust myself to the chance of verbally thanking you for the delightful volume you have sent me, within so short an interval after its receipt as may save me from the suspicion of having neglected it. "Therefore, I write to thank you for it to assure you that, even in my unlaidGhost-like plight, I have renewed with the utmost pleasure my acquaintance with those old friends.

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Faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS." Here are two short letters from Thack eray when in a convivial frame of mind, one referring to a coming, and the other to a passing year, and both containing in vitations to dinner.

"Though we never meet we should
If you could and if you would
Will you take your dinner here
On the last day of the year?
And believe me Hunt my dear
Yours for ever and a day
Doubleyouem Thackeray.”

With which absurd scribble, probably dashed off on the spur of the moment, I will bring my remarks concerning Leigh Hunt to a conclusion.

It will be seen that other notable perinto this paper, but their letters, in all their sons besides himself have found their way varied points of interest, were addressed to one individual, who thus becomes the connecting link between them all.

From Temple Bar.

AUNT ANNE.

CHAPTER III.

FLORENCE sat thinking over Walter's hint concerning his health. She had suc ceeded in frightening herself a good deal; with him that rest and change would not for there was really nothing the matter set right. She remembered all the years he had been constantly at work, for even in their holidays he had taken away something he wanted to get done, and for the first time she realized how great the strain "MY DEAR HUNT, I have not only must have been upon him. "He must not had time to thank you for the 'Jar of long for a change," she thought, "for a Honey:' but I have not even tasted any break in his life, an upsetting of its presof it—nor of Tennyson's Medley-havent programme. The best thing of all

"3 January, 1847.

would be a sea voyage. That would do him a world of good." She fancied him on board a P. and O., walking up and down the long deck, drinking in life and strength. How vigorous he would grow; how sun-burnt and handsome, and how delightful it would be to see him return. She hoped that Mr. Fisher would offer him a special correspondentship for a time, or something that would break the routine of his life and give him the excitement and pleasure that a spell of rest and complete change would entail. She would talk to Mr. Fisher herself, she thought. He always liked arranging other people's lives; he was so clever in setting things right for any one who consulted him, and so hopeful; and no doubt he had noticed already that Walter was looking

ill.

"But he is quite well; it is nothing but overwork, and that can soon be set right"

There was a double knock at the street door.

It was only eleven o'clock, too early for visitors. Florence left off thinking of Walter to wonder who it could be. The door was opened and shut, the servant's footsteps going up to the drawing-room were followed by others so soft that they could scarcely be heard at all.

"Mrs. Baines, ma'am. She told me to say that she was most anxious to see you."

"Mrs. Baines?" Florence exclaimed absently. It was so long since she had seen Aunt Anne, and she had never heard her called by her formal name that for the moment she was puzzled. Then she remembered and went up quickly to meet her visitor.

voice, "I felt that I must see you and Walter again," and she folded Mrs. Hibbert to her heart.

"I am very glad to see you, Aunt Anne," Florence answered simply. "Are you quite well, and are you staying in London ? But you are in deep mourning; I hope you have not had any very sad loss?" The tears came into the poor old lady's eyes.

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My dear," she said still more tremulously than before, "you are evidently not aware of my great bereavement; but I might have known that, for if you had been you would have written to me. Florence, I am a widow; I am alone in the world."

Mrs. Hibbert put her hands softly on Aunt Anne's and kissed her.

"I didn't know, I had no idea, and Walter had not

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"I knew it. Don't think that I have wronged either you or him. I knew that you were ignorant of all that had happened to me or you would have written to express your sympathy, though, if you had, I might not even have received your letter, for I have been homeless, too," Mrs. Baines said sadly. She stopped for a moment, then watching Florence intently she went on in a choking voice, "Mr. Baines has been dead more than eight months. He died as he had lived, my darling. He thought of you both three weeks before his death," and her left eye winked.

"It was very kind of him," Florence said gratefully; "and you, dear Aunt Anne," she asked gently, "are you staying in London for the present? Where are you living?"

It seemed as if Aunt Anne gathered up all her strength to answer.

"My dear, I am in London because I am destitute -destitute, Florence, and and I have to work for my living." Her niece was too much astonished to answer for a minute.

Aunt Anne was sitting on the little yel low couch near the window. She looked thin and spare, as she had done at Brighton, but she had a woebegone air now that had not belonged to her then. She was in deep mourning; there was a mass of crape on her bonnet, and a limp But, Aunt Anne," she exclaimed, cashmere shawl clung about her shoul-"how can you work? what can you have ders. She rose slowly as Florence en- strength to do, you poor dear?" tered, but did not advance a single step.

She stretched out her arms; the black shawl gave them the appearance of wings; they made her look, as she stood with her back to the light, like a large bat. But the illusion was only momentary, and then the wan face, the many wrinkles and the nervous twitch of the left eye all helped to make an effect that was pathetic enough.

"Florence," she said in a tremulous LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXIX. 4062

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Aunt Anne hesitated a moment; she winked again in an absent, unconscious manner, and then answered with great solemnity,

"I have accepted a post at South Kensington as chaperon to a young married lady whose husband is abroad. She has a young sister staying with her, and her husband does not approve of their being alone without some older person to protect them."

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"I should not stay with them an hour if they ever forgot what was due to me. They treat me with the greatest respect." "But why have you been obliged to do this, you poor Aunt Anne? Had Mr. Baines no money to leave you?"

Aunt Anne's mouth twitched as she heard the Mr. Baines, but Florence had never thought of him as anything else, and when the two last words slipped out she felt it would be better to go on and not to notice her mistake.

"No, my love, at his death his income ceased; there was barely enough for immediate expenses, and then and then I had to go out into the world." It was terrible to see how keenly Aunt Anne suffered; how fully alive she was to the sad side of her own position. Poor old lady, it was impossible to help feeling very much for her, Florence thought.

“And had he no relations at all who could help you, dear?" she asked, wondering that none should have held out a helping hand.

"No, not one. I married for love, as you did; that is one reason why I knew that you would feel for me?'

There was a world of sadness in her voice as she said the last words; her face seemed to grow thinner and paler as she related her troubles. She looked far older, too, than she had done on the Brighton day. The little lines about her face had become wrinkles; her hair was scantier and greyer; her eyes deeper set in her head; her hands were the thin, dry hands of old age.

Florence ached for her, and pondered things over for a moment. Walter was not rich, and he was not strong just now, the hint of yesterday had sunk deep in her heart. Still, he and she must try to make this poor soul's few remaining years comfortable, if no one else could be found on whom she had a claim. She did not think she would care for Aunt Anne to come and live with them; she remembered an aunt who had lived in her girlhood's home, who had not been a success. But they might for all that do something;

the old lady could not be left to the wide world's tender mercies. Florence knew but little of her husband's relations, except that he had no near or intimate ones left, but there might be some outlying cousins sufficiently near to Aunt Anne to make their helping her a moral obligation.

"Have you no friends — no relations at all, dear Aunt Anne?" she asked.

With a long sigh Mrs. Baines answered: "Florence"-she gave a gulp before she went on, as if to show that what she had to tell was almost too sad to be put into words "Sir William Rammage is my own cousin, he has thousands and thousands a year, and he refuses to allow me anything. I went to him when I first came to London and begged him to give me a small income so that I might not be obliged to go out into the world; but he said that he had so many claims upon him that it was impossible. Yet he and I were babes together; we lay in the same cradle once, while our mothers stood over us, hand in hand. But though we had not met since we were six years old till I went to him in my distress a few months ago, he refused to do anything for me.

"Have you been in London long then, Aunt Anne?"

"I have been here five months, Florence. I took a lodging on the little means I had left, and then- and then I had to struggle as best I could."

"You should have come to us before, poor dear."

"I should have done so, my love, but my lodging was too simple, and I was not in a position to receive you as I could have wished. I waited, hoping that Sir William would see that it was incumbent on him to make me an adequate allowance; but he has not done so."

"And won't he do anything for you? II he is rich he might do something tempora rily, even if he won't make you a perma nent allowance. Has he done nothing?"

Mrs. Baines shook her head sadly. "He sent me some port wine, my love, but port wine is always pernicious to me. I wrote and told him so, but he did not even reply. It is not four years ago since he was lord mayor of London, and yet he will do nothing for me."

She had lost her air of distress, there was a dogged dignity in her manner; she stood up and looked at her niece; it seemed as if, in speaking of Sir William Rammage, she remembered that the world had used her shamefully, and she had determined to give it back bitter scorn for its indifference to her griefs.

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