Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/99

 9>s.x.AuG.2,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tion of Highgate, Wood Green, &c. I have a very distinct recollection of calling upon him in Myddelton Square at the time when I was living close to him in Percy Circus. Books were piled up from floor to ceiling, appa- rently in great confusion, but he seemed to remember where to find every book and what there was in it. It is a singular fact that the only person outside those I have mentioned who seems to have known him was that brilliant, but eccentric journalist Thomas Purnell, who had an immense opinion of him and used to call him " the scholar." How Purnell managed to break through the icy wall that surrounded the recluse always puzzled me ; but I suppose they must have come across one another at one of those pleasant inns in the north of London where " the scholar " was taking his chop and bottle of Beaune. He was a man that never made new friends, and as one after another of his old friends died he was left so entirely alone that, I think, he saw no one except Mr. Swinburne, the author of ' Aylwin,' and myself. But at Christmas he always spent a week at the Pines, when and where my father and I used to meet him. His memory was so powerful that lie seemed to be able to recall not only all that he had read, but the very conversations in which he had taken a part. He died, I think, at a little over eighty, and his faculties up to the last were exactly like those of a man in the prime of life. He always reminded me of Charles Lamb's description of George Dyer.

Such is my outside picture of this extra- ordinary man ; and it is only of externals that I am free to speak here, even if I were com- petent to touch upon his inner life. He was a still greater recluse than the " Philip Aylwin " of the novel. I think I am right in saying that he took up one or two Oriental tongues when he was seventy years of age. Another of his passions was numismatics, and it was in these studies that he sym- pathized with the author of ' Aylwin's ' friend the late Lord de Tabley. 1 remember one story of his peculiarities which will give an idea of the kind of man he was. He had a brother who was the exact opposite of him in every way strikingly good-looking, with great charm of manner and savoir faire, but with an ordinary intellect and a very super- ficial knowledge of literature, or, indeed, anything else, except records of British military and naval exploits where he was really learned. Being full of admiration of his student brother, and having a parrot-like instinct for mimicry, he used to talk with

great volubility upon all kinds of subjects wherever he went, and repeat in the same words what he had been listening to from his brother, until at last he got to be called the " walking encyclopaedia." The result was that he got the reputation of being a great reader and an original thinker, while the true student and book-lover was fre- quently complimented on the way in which he took after bis learned brother. This did not in the least annoy the real student, it simply amused him, and he would give with a dry humour most amusing stories as to what people had said to him on this subject.

Before I close this note I have a word to say about a letter concerning my previous remarks upon 'Aylwin,' addressed by Mr. H. M. Birkdale, a friend of Smetham's, to the Literary World, who affirms that there are some points of likeness between Smetham and " Wilderspin " with very great variations. This corroborates my words, for, as I said, some very salient characteristics of "Wilder- spin" belong to another artist altogether, and the personal history of Smetham was not at all like that of "Wilderspin."

At the end of my notes upon ' Aylwin ' in 9 th S. ix. 450 I said that, should any of your correspondents '' want enlightening upon any matters within my knowledge in con- nexion with ' Aylwjfl,' I should be pleased to come to their assistance." I did not mean that I should be able to give private answers to correspondents who should send their questions to my private address ; but that, should a question be raised which in the opinion of the Editor of ' N. & Q.' was of sufficient importance to gain it a place in his columns, I should, as an old subscriber to the journal, be pleased to furnish any in- formation within my power. I make this statement because it is impossible for me to answer the letters sent to my private address. THOMAS ST. E. HAKE.

[We had some acquaintance with the being MB. HAKE depicts, and can testify to the truth of the portraiture.]

ALBINO ANIMALS (9 th S. ix. 307). Herodotus (ii. 38) does not say that white cattle were sacred to Epaphus. He says that the Egyptians looked on male oxen as belonging to Epaphus, and for purposes of sacrifice they rejected any that had a single black hair. He further says that the animals were submitted to a searching examination to determine whether certain marks were pre- sent or not. Herodotus's statement is not quite clear, and more than one change in the text has been proposed ; but he is usually