owl-like eyes of the poet-diplomatist. Another of Forster's purchases
was Maclise's huge picture of Caxton showing his first printed book to
the King.

It was a treat and an education to go round a picture gallery with
him, so excellent and to the point were his criticisms. He seized on
the _essential_ merit of each. I remember going with him to see the
collected works of his old friend Leslie, R.A., when he frankly
confessed his disappointment at the general _thinness_ of the colour
and style, brought out conspicuously when the works were all gathered
together: this was the effect, with a certain _chalkiness_. At the
Dublin Exhibition he was greatly struck by a little cabinet picture by
an Anglo-German artist, one Webb, and was eager to secure it, though
he objected to the price. However, on the morning of his departure the
secretary drove up on an outside car to announce that the artist would
take fifty pounds, which Forster gave. This was "The Chess-players,"
which now hangs at South Kensington.

He had deep feeling and hesitation even as to putting anything into
print without due pause and preparation. Print had not then become
what it is now, with the telephone, type-writing, and other aids, a
mere expression of conversation and of whatever floating ideas are
passing through the mind. Mr. Purcell's wholesale exhibition of
Cardinal Manning's inmost thoughts and feelings would have shocked
him inexpressibly. I was present when a young fellow, to whom he had
given some papers, brought him the proofs in which the whole was
printed off without revision or restraint. He gave him a severe
rebuke. "Sir, you seem to have no idea of the _sacredness_ of the
Press; you _pitch in_ everything, as if into a bucket. Such
carelessness is inexcusable." Among them was a letter from Colburn,
the former husband of his wife. "I am perfectly _astounded_ at you!
Have you not the tact to see that such a thing as that should not
appear?" And he drew his pen indignantly across it. That was a good
lesson for the youth. In such matters, however, he did not spare
friend or stranger.

It is curious, considering how sturdy a pattern of Englishman was
Forster, that all his oldest friends were Irishmen, such as Maclise,
Emerson Tennant, Whiteside, Macready, Quain, Foley, Mulready, and many
more. For all these he had almost an affection, and he cherished their
old and early intimacy. He liked especially the good-natured impulsive
type of the G