"Ouida" is not generally known to have been the nursery name of "Louisa" de la Ramenay, just as "Boz" was of Dickens.

Both "Ouida" and _Miss Braddon_, whom also I have seen as Mrs.Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand.

There remains a worthy duplicated friendship of later years, _Mr._ and _Mrs.Carter Hall_, of whose geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also _Mr._ and _Mrs.
Grote_, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also _Lady Wilde_, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, and her eloquent son _Oscar_, famous for taste all the world over; and as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, _Charles Mackay_, with his charming daughter, the poetess.
* * * * * Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is _Rogers_, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St.James's Place; _Carlyle_, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;--after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, "And good be with you!" It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.
Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited _Haweis_, the eloquent preacher of St.James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last Mr.Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder.

This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of campanology.

And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr.
Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent.