of
his name in full (and he always wrote Esquire and not Esq.) exactly
describes him, with his peculiarity of greeting one with "_Oh_, I'm so
glad to see you!" and with his usual signature "W.H.," which also he
put on a medal for good conduct to youths, and gave my son one of those
"W.H. medals." Now the words "Oh, Walter Hawkins, Esquire," makes
anagrammatically, "W.H., who likes rare antiques!" exactly his
idiosyncrasy as a man and a collector.

We all know how strangely "The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone,
M.P.," spells, "I am the Whig M.P. who'll be a traitor to England's
rule:"--may it not prove to be prophetic. And still more strange is the
fact that the words "William Ewart Gladstone" spell "Erin, we will go
mad at last!" which seems only too likely. Another curious anagram is
this,--in a far different vein: "Christmas comes but once a year," makes
"So by Christ came a rescue to man." There's no end to these petty word
miracles.

But to revert to our theme and to conclude it. As a West India merchant,
Mr. Hawkins one day sent me down to Albury a hogshead of sugar and some
sacks of rice, to be given (or, as he preferred it, sold at half price
for honour's sake and not to pauperise) to my poorer neighbours for a
Christmas gift. Well, to please him, I tried to sell, and only raised
the rancour of the shopkeepers, who declared I was competing with them
as a grocer: then I gave, with the same experience that soup charity had
before taught me, to wit, that poor quarrelled with poorer, and both
with me, for more or less given. So I was glad when it all came to an
end. It is very difficult, as many a Lady Bountiful knows, to be
charitable on a wide scale: _e.g._ once, in my country life, I tried to
recommend brown bread and oatmeal; and got nothing by it but ill-will,
as if wishing to starve the poor by denial of wheat-flour.

Most of us have been checked in such silly efforts to do good through
forgetfulness of the fact that usually the poorest are the proudest.
Even the luxurious _debris_ of London Club kitchens must be flung into
swill-barrels for pigs, because starving men and women will not demean
themselves to ask for it at the buttery-hatch. Moreover, that such are
often extravagant too, everybody has found out--here's an instance: In
my legal days, I now and then of course relieved poor folk, and
sometimes passed through Seven Dials: casually, I looked in upon an old
couple to whom I had occasionally