1844-54. EFFECT OF TRAVELLING. 377 



closes his note with a request not to name him as a poet, which, 

 he adds, " I don't pretend to be, and my analyses would, I dare- 

 say, be discredited by some of my employers if they heard I made 

 verses." Our space does not admit of their insertion. 



A series of visits to the Crystal Palace in 1851, while the 

 guest of his kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson, was a source 

 of great enjoyment. " To me the whole was unspeakably, un- 

 utterably inspiriting, refreshing, and edifying." After quitting 

 the " poem in glass and iron," and spending a short time with 

 his cousin, Alexander Eussell, in Hampshire, he returned home 

 apparently better in health. It was therefore with surprise he 

 learned from a medical friend, that at that very time a large 

 cavity in his lungs had led the doctors to believe a few months 

 would bring him to the grave. It healed up partially, however, 

 and for some time hopes of permanent recovery were enter- 

 tained. Here is part of a home letter during this journey : 



" Miss JEANIE, Which am your brother, and was much 

 pleased to hear that the painters Mrs. M. I am sure never in- 

 tended that the wax and bored four holes in the round piece 

 of wood which is a new paper and much the sermon last 

 Sunday at the Polytechnic a stone heavier and Dr. Voelcker 

 stated that they are not shrimps but prawns and rose at seven 

 o'clock. Dear Jean, such is the condition my mind is reduced 

 to by the anxieties attendant on awaking myself, rising at seven, 

 shaving with cold water, looking out clean shirts and collars, 

 and other painful and harassing duties. You will too plainly see 

 that the power of continuous thinking is gone, and that the 

 mind wanders distressingly." 



While in London in 1854, giving evidence before a Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons, the death of his cousin, John 

 Eussell, after a lingering illness, made him hasten home, as 

 once before, in 1839, to be present at the last services of love. 

 " For all this whirling and night travelling I was to pay. The 

 sleeping volcano in my lungs was roused from its slumbers, and 

 the day after my return saw me prostrate in bed, with a sharp 

 febrile attack, headache, semi delirium, and cough. Kest, star- 



