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"Draw up the blind and let me see the stars; for I still love the beauty."

At the cemetery at Porta Pinti are some sombre gates with, over them, the words "Ils se reposent de leurs travaux, et leurs œuvres les suivent." Those black gates opened one sunny December morning and showed a sloping avenue of marble tombs, tangles of pink and of white China roses in full flower falling over them, and at the end a tall white cross shining in the sunlight against the blue Italian sky,-fit of the black gates of death, which had rolled back to let him pass into the Eternal Light beyond.

There we left him in completest trust, our "Knight Errant," after his life's warfare.

For there is a poem by Adelaide Procter (on whom written I know not) which seems to give, with the full force of poetical presentation, the spirit of the Life I have tried to depict. It even seems to follow the very order of the periods of that life our hero following the course of

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hers; and thus fulfilling Mrs Browning's words

when she says

"Ingemisco, ingemisco!

Is ever a lament begun

By any mourner under sun

Which, ere it endeth, suits but one?"

In my extract-book the following lines have lain away for the nearly forty years which have passed since he went from us, and they still remain, to me, the best expression of what he was. I find, in pencil, against the verses the place or date which they symbolise.

If those who have read these pages see their aptness, they will learn from them, more than from any words of mine, what measure of man he was.

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Then his heart and life he offered

To his radiant mistress-Truth. Never thought or dream of faltering Marred the promise of his youth.

So he rode forth to defend her,

And her peerless worth proclaim; Challenging each recreant doubter

Who aspersed her spotless name.

First upon his path stood Ignorance,
Hideous in his brutal might;
Hard the blows and long the battle
Ere the monster took to flight.

Then, with light and fearless spirit,
Prejudice he dared to brave,

Hunting back the lying craven

To her black sulphureous cave.

Followed by his servile minions,
Custom, the old Giant, rose;

Yet he, too, at last was conquered
By the good Knight's weighty blows.

Once again he rose a conqueror,

And, though wounded in the fight,

With a dying smile of triumph

Saw that Truth had gained her right.

On his failing ear re-echoing

Came the shouting round her throne;

Little cared he that no future

With her name would link his own.

London, 1820 to 1854.

Weybridge.

Spent with many a hard-fought battle

Slowly ebbed his life away,

And the crowd that flocked to greet her
Trampled on him where he lay.

Gathering all his strength he saw her
Crowned and reigning in her pride,
Looked his last upon her beauty,

Raised his eyes to God—and died.”

Italy.

-A. A. PROCTER.

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