24 From 1850 /f? 1862 



II 



what impudence ! " at every page.' His intellectual 

 interests were, however, most intensely excited by the 

 works of the Elizabethan playwrights. In that 

 grand library at Bridgewater House there was open 

 to him a rich mine of treasure, in which he delved 

 with the utmost enthusiasm ; and he took upon 

 himself the extremely arduous task of compiling an 

 elaborate catalogue of the early quartos dramatic — 

 a catalogue which was to contain, as he explained in 

 a letter to Mr. Macmillan, ' the lives of the dramatists, 

 short criticism on each man and his style, extracts 

 from each play that is interesting from its beauty, 

 rarity, or general interest, and every bit of gossip that 

 can be picked up relating to the dramas under con- 

 sideration,' He also had thoughts of extracting bits 

 of early song and poetry, quaint stories, and quaint 

 conceits out of the larger books, and welding them 

 together into a pleasing and more popular book. 



Neither the novel, the catalogue, nor the popular 

 book were destined ever to reach completion. 

 Concerning the novel there may be quoted here a 

 letter which he once wrote to a friend who had 

 asked him why he had never made an essay in 

 fiction : — ' Why the deuce didn't I write a novel ? 

 Faith ! I know not. I sat and dreamt before the 

 fire ; I had glimpses of bits of life that I thought 

 would do, bright bits of ideal life, sad bits of real 

 life, so sad that I could have wept over them ; and 

 then somebody asked me about the effect of America 

 on a constitution, or if I thought that Lady Betty's 



