he found himself unable to keep, and at the last moment he telegraphed that he was too unwell to attend. Two days later he sent a short note to one of his intimates, postponing a little expedition which had been arranged, and stating that the old enemy in his foot was again causing him annoyance.

On 2nd May he was better-sufficiently well, indeed, to accept the invitation of his artist friends, and to dine with them at the opening of the Royal Academy.

Mr. Arthur Locker writes:-" The last time I saw him was a few weeks since, when I had the pleasure of meeting him at dinner. To all outward appearance he then looked like a man who would live and work until he was fourscore. I was especially struck by the brilliancy and vivacity of his eyes. There seemed as much life and animation in them as in twenty ordinary pairs of eyes."

It was at the Academy dinner that he made his last public speech, and his concluding words upon this occasion were a tribute to the memory of his dear friend, Daniel Maclise, then recently deceased :"Since," he said, "I first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side, one by one, that I already begin to feel like the Spanish monk, of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities

around him were the pictures which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream.

"For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and most constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility of mind, and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, without one grain of selfambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, 'in wit a man, simplicity a child,' no artist, of whatever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the art goddess whom he worshipped."

NLY since the death of Mr. Dickens is it that the high respect in which Her Majesty has

always held the great novelist and his writings has become generally known, but for many years past our Queen has taken the liveliest interest in his literary labours, and has frequently expressed a desire for an interview with him. And here it may not be uninteresting to mention a circumstance in illustration of Her Majesty's regard for her late distinguished subject which came under the writer's personal notice. Six years ago, just before the library of Mr. Thackeray was sold off at Palace Green, Kensington, a catalogue of the books was sent to Her Majesty-in all probability by her request. She desired some memorial of the great man, and preferred to make her own selection by purchase rather than ask the family for any memento by way of gift. There were books with odd drawings from Thackeray's pen and pencil,

there were others crammed with MS. notes, but there was one lot thus described in the catalogue :DICKENS (C.) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, in prose, 1843; Presentation Copy,

INSCRIBED

"W. M. Thackeray, from Charles Dickens (whom he made very happy once a long way from home)."

Her Majesty expressed the strongest desire to possess this, and sent an unlimited commission to buy it. The original published price of the book was 5s. It became Her Majesty's property for £25 10s., and was at once taken to the palace.

The personal interview Her Majesty had long expressed a desire to have with Mr. Dickens took place on the 9th April, 1870, when he received her commands to attend her at Buckingham Palace, and accordingly did so, being introduced by his friend, Mr. Arthur Helps, the Clerk of the Privy Council.

The interview was a lengthened one, and most satisfactory to both. In the course of it Her Majesty expressed to him her warm interest in and admiration of his works, and on parting presented him with a copy of her own book, "Our Life in the Highlands," with an autograph inscription, "Victoria R. to Charles Dickens," on the flyleaf; at the same time making a charmingly modest and graceful remark as to the relative positions occupied in the world of letters by the donor and the recipient of the book.

Soon after his return home, he sent to Her Majesty

an edition of his collected works; and when the Clerk of the Council recently went to Balmoral the Queen, knowing the friendship that existed between Mr. Dickens and Mr. Helps, showed the latter where she had placed the gift of the great novelist. This was in her own private library, in order that she might always see the books; and Her Majesty expressed her desire that Mr. Helps should inform the great novelist of this arrangement.*

Since our author's decease, the journal with which he was formerly connected has said :

"We were not at liberty at that time to make known that the QUEEN was then personally occupied with the consideration of some means by which she might, in her public capacity, express her sense of the value of Mr. DICKENS's services to his country and to literature. It may now be stated that the QUEEN was ready to confer any distinction which Mr. DICKENS's known views and tastes would permit him to accept, and that after more than one title of honour had been declined, HER MAJESTY desired that he would, at least, accept a place in her Privy Council."

Three days before this he had attended the levée, and been presented to her son H. R. H. The Prince

*

Immediately on his return from Balmoral, Mr. Helps wrote to Mr. Dickens, in pursuance of Her Majesty's desire; but the letter that contained so remarkable a tribute to the great novelist could only have reached Gad's Hill while he lay unconscious and dying.