368 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



some account ! I question whether Sir Thomas had 

 thoughts twenty years ago of coming before the public 

 as the editor of a work on natural history. 



' Lady Clare is going on with her improvements on 

 her newly purchased property, and threw down a few 

 days ago a little old house, which, with its low serrated 

 gable to the street, ran back, in what Professor Jameson 

 calls the Flemish style, into the heart of the garden 

 behind. And what of that ? you may say. Not much to 

 any one but me, but I have grieved for that little old 

 house as for a friend. I have spent in it some of the 

 happiest hours I ever spent anywhere. The front part 

 of it was occupied by the shop of a house-painter, but 

 in the upper part there was a little room, which during 

 his apprenticeship my poor deceased friend, William 

 Ross, used to call his own. He slept in it, and drew 

 in it, and wrote in it, and took in it many a review 

 of the past, and formed many a hope for the future. I 

 saw his hand-writing on the wall, in a much-admired 

 quotation from Blair's Grave. 



" Sure the last end 



Of the good man is peace ! How calm his exit ! 

 Night dews fall not more gently to the ground, 

 Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft." 



I have heard him repeat the passage at a time when he 

 little thought it was to be soon realized in himself. For 

 the last fortnight I have been employed in writing a bio- 

 graphical sketch of him, which is to serve as one of the 

 chapters of my second volume ; and it will not, I trust, 

 prove one of the least interesting. He has now been in 

 his grave these six years, and yet my recollections of 

 him are as fresh as if he died yesterday. I cannot 

 forget him, and if I myself be ever known to the world, 

 the world shall know why.' 



