xl MEMOIR. 



stilts ; but which will be, perhaps, to the more 

 thoughtful reader only additional notes of power, 

 of that true English ' Lebensgliickseligkeit,' as the 

 German calls it, which makes a jest of danger and 

 an amusement of toil. Jean Paul makes somewhere 

 the startling assertion that no man really believes 

 his religious creed unless he can afford to jest about 

 it. Without going so far as that, I will say boldly," 

 adds the writer, "that no man feels himself master 

 of his work unless he can afford to jest about it ; 

 and that a frolicsome habit of mind is rather a token 

 of deep, genial, and superabundant vitality, than of 

 a shallow and narrow nature, which can only be 

 earnest and attentive by conscious and serious 

 efforts." * There were few circles of society to which 

 Frank Oates had not ready admission ; and where - 

 ever he had once been received a welcome was 

 never wanting afterwards. Whatever raciness or 

 originality of character was to be met with where his 

 lot for the time was cast, he failed not to find it out ; 

 and he eagerly availed himself of every opportunity 

 which enabled him to see life in its less conventional 

 aspects. A certain chivalry endeared him to the 

 weak, his fearlessness attracted to him the strong, 

 and no act of kindness was ever lost upon or 

 forgotten by him. He wandered far afield ; but at 

 home or abroad it ever was the same with him, and 



1 ' Fraser's Magazine,' November 1856. 



