1890 LIFE IN LONDON 183 



have been, as he said, merely to alleviate the pains of 

 hunger, for otherwise he would have carried some 

 more capacious receptacle than either his pockets or 

 his stomach. On the whole, therefore, I say — and 

 say emphatically — this case demands some explana- 

 tion. 



I am, Sir, yours, &c., 



LL.D. 



He was always ready to hsten to what younger 

 men (and women) had to say, to talk to them about 

 his ovna subjects, his own work, to draw out their 

 abilities, to discuss their difficulties. What Mr. 

 Lionel Tollemache has written of Professor Owen is 

 not less apphcable to him : 



' His innate modesty enabled him, when speaking 

 upon his own subject, so to let himself down to the 

 level of the ordinary listeners that they not only felt 

 quite at their ease with him, but fancied for the 

 moment that they were experts hke himself.' 



Journal, Jan. 1888. — Met Mr. Burne-Jones at 

 the Humphry Wards', and had much interesting 

 talk anent Eossetti. Bume-Jones said Eossetti was 

 hke an emperor ; his voice was that of a king who 

 could quell his subjects. Also that he had a won- 

 derful memory for metre, but that Swinburne's is 

 better still, inasmuch as he can remember prose. 

 On one occasion S-^dnburne recited to Burne-Jones 

 several pages of Milton's prose which he had read 

 once twenty years previously. Burne-Jones went on 

 to say that Eossetti worked a great deal at his poetry, 

 and added, ' That's what you can do with words, 



