year, when (April
1844) he attended Mr. Smithson's funeral. With members or connections of
the family of this friend, his intercourse long continued.

In the previous February, on the 26th and 28th respectively, he had
taken the chair at two great meetings, in Liverpool of the Mechanics'
Institution, and in Birmingham of the Polytechnic Institution, to which
reference is made by him in a letter of the 21st. I quote the allusion
because it shows thus early the sensitive regard to his position as a
man of letters, and his scrupulous consideration for the feelings as
well as interest of the class, which he manifested in many various and
often greatly self-sacrificing ways all through his life. "Advise me on
the following point. And as I must write to-night, having already lost a
post, advise me by bearer. This Liverpool Institution, which is wealthy
and has a high grammar-school the masters of which receive in salaries
upwards of L2000 a year (indeed its extent horrifies me; I am struggling
through its papers this morning), writes me yesterday by its secretary a
business letter about the order of the proceedings on Monday; and it
begins thus. 'I beg to send you prefixed, with the best respects of our
committee, a bank order for twenty pounds in payment of the expenses
contingent on your visit to Liverpool.'--And there, sure enough, it is.
Now my impulse was, _and is_, decidedly to return it. Twenty pounds is
not of moment to me; and any sacrifice of independence is worth it
twenty times' twenty times told. But haggling in my mind is a doubt
whether that would be proper, and not boastful (in an inexplicable way);
and whether as an author, I have a right to put myself on a basis which
the professors of literature in other forms _connected with the
Institution_ cannot afford to occupy. Don't you see? But of course you
do. The case stands thus. The Manchester Institution, being in debt,
appeals to me as it were _in forma pauperis_, and makes no such
provision as I have named. The Birmingham Institution, just struggling
into life with great difficulty, applies to me on the same grounds. But
the Leeds people (thriving) write to me, making the expenses a distinct
matter of business; and the Liverpool, as a point of delicacy, say
nothing about it to the last minute, and then send the money. Now, what
in the name of goodness ought I to do?--I am as much puzzled with the
cheque as Colonel Jack was with his gold. If it would have set