Swinburne, the author
of _Aylwin_, and myself. But at Christmas he always spent a week at
'The Pines,' when and where my father and I used to meet him. His
memory was so powerful that he seemed to be able to recall not only
all that he had read, but the very conversations in which he had
taken a part. He died, I think, at a little over eighty, and his
faculties up to the last were exactly like those of a man in the
prime of life. He always reminded me of Charles Lamb's description
of George Dyer.
Such is my outside picture of this extraordinary man; and it is only
of externals that I am free to speak here, even if I were competent
to touch upon his inner life. He was a still greater recluse than
the 'Philip Aylwin' of the novel. I think I am right in saying that
he took up one or two Oriental tongues when he was seventy years of
age. Another of his passions was numismatics, and it was in these
studies that he sympathized with the author of _Aylwin's_ friend, the
late Lord de Tabley. I remember one story of his peculiarities which
will give an idea of the kind of man he was.
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