MEMOIR. xxxix 



his whole soul ; a purpose once formed rarely failed 

 in its fulfilment ; and such was the elasticity of his 

 temperament that he would turn from one subject 

 to another, each as a mere refreshment from the 

 last. To this was added, in no common measure, 

 a certain freshness and buoyancy of spirit, which 

 enabled him in a moment to throw off the spell 

 which bound him, and join on occasion in the frolic 

 of the hour. A peculiar brightness characterized 

 his being, and rendered the common incidents of 

 life attractive to him ; and should any be found who 

 regard as incongruous the lightness of spirit which 

 occasionally manifests itself even in the ensuing 

 pages, in connexion with more serious subjects, such 

 ones may read with interest the following extract 

 from the writings of the late Charles Kingsley, with 

 reference to this very tendency, as manifested in 

 another posthumous author, whose book was edited 

 by a friend. "With a reverence for the dead," he 

 says, "which will at once be understood and 

 honoured, he [the editor] has refrained, perhaps 

 here and there too scrupulously, from altering a 

 single word of the documents as he found them, 

 respecting even certain scraps of Cambridge and 

 Winchester slang, which may possibly offend that 

 class of readers who fancy that the sign of 

 magnanimity is to take everything au grand sdrieux, 

 and that the world's work must needs be done upon 



