doctor." Such a
recommendation seemed to me a good one: and I also knew that his
organizing head had formed the first district society in England (for
Mrs. Fry told me she could not have effected it without his aid); yet he
has always ignored his own share of it. I felt in him at once the
curious combination of the Christian and the cynic,--of reverence for
man, and contempt of men. It was then an internal war, but one in which
it was evident to me that the holier cause would be victorious, because
there was deep belief, and, as far as I could learn, a blameless and
benevolent life. He appeared only to want sunshine. It was a plant
which could not be brought to perfection in darkness. He had begun life
by the most painful conflict between filial duty and conscience,--a large
provision in the church secured for him by his father; but he could not
sign. There was discredit, as you know, attached to such scruples.

'He was also, when I first knew him, under other circumstances of a
nature to depress him, and to make him feel that he was unjustly treated.
The gradual removal of these called forth his better nature in
thankfulness to God. Still the old misanthropic modes of expressing
himself obtruded themselves at times. This passed in '48 between him and
Robertson. Robertson said to me, "I want to know something about ragged
schools." I replied, "You had better ask Dr. King: he knows more about
them."--"I?" said Dr. King. "I take care to know nothing of ragged
schools, lest they should make me ragged." Robertson did not see through
it. Perhaps I had been taught to understand such suicidal speeches by my
cousin, Lord Melbourne.

'The example of Christ, imperfectly as it may be understood by him, has
been ever before his eyes: he woke to the thought of following it, and he
went to rest consoled or rebuked by it. After nearly thirty years of
intimacy, I may, without presumption, form that opinion. There is
something pathetic to me in seeing any one so unknown. Even the other
medical friends of Robertson, when I knew that Dr. King felt a woman's
tenderness, said on one occasion to him, "But we know that you, Dr. King,
are above all feeling."

'If I have made the character more consistent to you by putting in these
bits of mosaic, my pen will not have been ill employed, nor unpleasingly
to you.

'Yours truly,

'A. NOEL BYRON.'

*