Victor Hugo, when resident in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of the _bric-a-brac_ wherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of access to its inmate.

Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that time.

Since then, Mr.Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so that our spirits are now manifestly _en rapport_.
I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St.
Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti." I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in the matter of his bronze statue to Prince Albert,--advocating it both in prose and verse, and being instrumental in getting royal permission to take a duplicate of the great work now at South Kensington.

My cousin the Bailiff, the late Sir Stafford Carey, dated his knighthood from the inauguration of the statue, now one of the chief ornaments of St.
Peter's Port,--the other being the Victoria Tower, also a Sarnian exploit.
Isle of Man.
Under such a title as this, "My Life as an Author," that author being chiefly known for his poetry, though he has also written plenty of prose, it is (as I have indeed just said) not to be reasonably objected that the volume is spotted with small poems.

Still, I must do it, if I wish to illustrate by verse, or other extracts from my writings (published or unprinted), certain places where the said author has had his temporary _habitat_: now one of these is the Isle of Man,--where I and mine made a long summer stay at Castle Mona.