e-headed arbiter,
good-naturedly and heartily giving his services to arrange any trouble
or business. How invaluable he was to Dickens is shown in the "Life."
With him friendship was a high and serious duty, more responsible even
than relationship. His warm heart, his time, his exertions, were all
given to his friend. No doubt he had some little pleasure in the
importance of his office, but he was in truth really indulging his
affections, and warm heart.

Among his own dearest friends was one for whom he seemed to have an
affection and admiration that might be called tender; his respect,
too, for his opinions and attainments were strikingly unusual in one
who thought so much of his own powers of judgment. This was the Rev.
WHITWELL ELWIN, Rector of Booton, Norwich. He seemed to me a man quite
of an unusual type, of much learning and power, and yet of a gentle
modesty that was extraordinary. In some things the present Master of
the Temple, Canon Ainger, very much suggests him. I see Elwin now, a
spare wiry being with glowing pink face and a very white poll. He
seemed a muscular person, yet never was there a more retiring, genial
and delicate-minded soul. His sensitiveness was extraordinary, as was
shown by his relinquishing his monumental edition of Pope's Works,
after it had reached to its eighth volume. The history of this
proceeding has never been clearly explained. No doubt he felt, as he
pursued his labours, that his sense of dislike to Pope and contempt
for his conduct was increasing, that he could not excuse or defend
him. Elwin was in truth the "complement" of Forster's life and
character. It was difficult to understand the one without seeing him
in the company of the other. It was astonishing how softened and
amiable, and even schoolboy-like, the tumultuous John became when he
spoke of or was in company with his old friend; he really delighted in
him. Forster's liking was based on respect for those gifts of culture,
pains-taking and critical instinct, which he knew his friend
possessed, and which I have often heard him praise in the warmest and
sincerest fashion. "In El-win"--he seemed to delight in rolling out
the syllables in this divided tone--"in El-ween you will find style
and finish. If there is anyone who knows the topic it is El-win. He is
your man."

I was bringing out a _magnum opus_, dedicated to Carlyle, Boswell's
_Life of Johnson_, entailing a vast deal of trouble and research. The
amiable Elwin,