Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, _Godwin Austen_, the geologist; and I have met _Pengelly_, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and _Dr.Bowerbank_, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, _Stephen Mackenzie_, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital.

_Matthew Arnold_ also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and _Shirley Brooks_, _Albert Smith_, and _Mark Lemon_, once a chief of _Punch_, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse.

My old friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry.
_Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly.

I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he adjured me "_not_ to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his face with his hands.

"What's the matter, friend ?" "_I_ wrote all these," added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,--it sells my books, besides--'I'se Maw-worm,--I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and the good fellow never did--so have I lost my most telling advertisement.
I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late _Frank Smedley_,--a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences as a brother author.