. Hone had appeared
in some of the newspapers, containing an offensive paragraph to the
effect that one 'speculation' having failed, Mr. Hone was disposed, and
persuaded by the Independent clergyman, to try another, that other being
'to try his powers in the pulpit.' This was felt by the family to be an
insult alike to the living and the dead. . . . Mr. Harrison's account is,
that the Independent clergyman was observed speaking to Miss Hone about
something apparently annoying to both, and that, turning to Mr.
Cruikshank, he said 'Have you seen the sketch of Mr. Hone's life in the
_Herald_?' Mr. C. replied 'Yes.' 'Don't you think it very
discreditable? It is a gross reflection on our poor friend, as if he
would use the most sacred things merely for a piece of bread; and it is
a libel on me and the denomination I belong to, as if we could be
parties to such a proceeding.' Mr. C. said in reply, 'I know something
of the article, but what you complain of was not in it originally--it
was an addition by another hand.' Mr. C. afterwards stated that he wrote
the article, 'but _not_ the offensive paragraph.' The vulgar nonsense
put into the mouth of the clergyman by Mr. Dickens was wound up, it is
said, by 'Let us pray' . . . but this _cannot_ be true; and for this
reason, the conversation with Mr. Cruikshank took place before the
domestic service, and that service, according to Nonconformist custom,
is always begun by reading an appropriate passage of Scripture. . . . Mr.
Dickens says that while they were kneeling at prayer Mr. Cruikshank
whispered to him what he relates. Mr. C. denies it; and I believe
him. . . . In addition to the improbability, one of the company remembers
that Mr. Dickens and Mr. Cruikshank did not sit together, and could not
have knelt side by side." The reader must be left to judge between what
is said of the incident in the text and these recollections of it after
thirty years.

* * * * *

At the close of the corrections to the first volume, prefixed to the
second, the intention was expressed to advert at the end of the work to
information, not in correction but in illustration of my text, forwarded
by obliging correspondents who had been scholars at the Wellington House
Academy (i. 74). But inexorable limits of space prevent, for the
present, a fulfilment of this intention.

J. F.

PALACE GATE HOUSE, KEN