It is the penalty of old age to lose all our friends and acquaintances, but fortunately our hold on earth weakens as the end of life draws near. In an active life, we see much of the world and the men who help to make it better. Many ministers and missionaries came to my father’s house with wonderful accounts of the spread of the Gospel in foreign parts. At a later time I saw a knot of popular lecturers and agitators—such as George Thompson, the great anti-slavery lecturer, who, born in humble life, managed to get into Parliament, where he collapsed altogether. As an outdoor orator he was unsurpassed, and carried all before him. After a speech of his I heard Lord Brougham declare it was one of the most eloquent he had ever heard. He started a newspaper, which, however, did not make much way. Then there was Henry Vincent, another natural orator, whom the common people heard gladly, and who at one time was very near getting into Parliament as M.P. for Ipswich, then, as now, a go-ahead town, full of Dissenters and Radicals. He began life as a Chartist and printer, and, I believe, was concerned in the outbreak near Newport. Of the same class was a man of real genius and immense learning, considering the disadvantages of his lowly birth, Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, and author of that magnificent poem, “The Purgatory of Suicides,” written when he was in gaol for being connected with a Chartist outbreak. He had been a Methodist, he became a Freethinker, and, when I knew him, was under the influence of Strauss’s Life of Jesus, a book which George Eliot had translated, and which made a great sensation at the time of its appearance, though it is utterly forgotten now. Cooper and I were members of an obscure club, in one of the Fleet Street courts, where he used to declaim with great eloquence on the evil doings of the Tories and the wrongs of the poor, while at the same time he had a true appreciation of the utter worthlessness of some of the Chartist leaders. As he advanced in years he gave up his infidel opinions and became an earnest advocate of the faith he once laboured to destroy. The last time I saw him was at his house in Lincoln shortly before he died. He seemed sound in body, considering his years, but his mind was gone and he remembered no one. At the same time I saw a good deal of Richard Lovett—a noble character—who worked all his life for the mental and moral improvement of the working man, of whom he was such an illustrious example. Cooper and Vincent and Lovett did much between them to make the working man respected as he had never been before.

One of the grandest old men I ever knew was George Cruikshank, the artist, in his later years an ardent advocate of Temperance, but a real Bohemian nevertheless, enjoying life and all its blessings to the last. At a dinner-party or at a social gathering of any kind he was at his best, full of anecdote, overflowing with wit and mimicry; as an orator also he had great power, and generally managed to keep his audience in a roar of laughter. While perfectly sober himself, he was very happy in taking off the drunkard’s eccentricities, and would sing “We are not fou,” or “Willie brewed a peck o’ malt,” as if he deemed a toper the prince of good fellows. In his old age he had persuaded himself that to him Dickens owed many of his happiest inspirations, a remark which the author of “The Pickwick Papers” strongly resented. At his home I met on one occasion Mrs. Dickens, a very pleasant, motherly lady, with whom one would have thought any husband could have happily lived, although the great novelist himself seemed to be of another way of thinking. Cruikshank’s wife seems to have been devoted to him. She was proud of him, as well she might be. He had a good head of hair, and to the last cherished a tremendous lock which adorned his forehead. He was rather square-built, with an eye that at one time must have rivalled that of the far-famed hawk. He lived comfortably in a good house just outside Mornington Crescent, in the Hampstead Road; but he was never a wealthy man, and was always publishing little pamphlets, which, whatever the fame they brought him, certainly yielded little cash. He had seen a good deal of life, or what a Cockney takes to be such, and when he was buried in Kensal Green, the attendance at the funeral showed how large was the circle of his friends and admirers. To the last he was proud of his whiskers.

Another friend of mine buried in the same place was Dr. Charles Mackay, the original editor of The Illustrated London News, and who differed so much with the proprietor, Mr. Ingram, M.P., on the character of the late French Emperor, for whom Dr. Mackay had a profound contempt, that he had to resign, and commenced The London Review, which did not last long. At one time his songs, “There’s a good time coming, boys,” and “Cheer boys, cheer,” were played on every barrel-organ, and were to be heard in every street. Another of the workers on The Illustrated News was John Timbs, the unwearying publisher of popular books of anecdotes, by which, I fear, he did not make much money, as he had to end his days in the Charter House. His department was to look after the engravings, a duty which compelled him to sit up all night on Thursdays. Before he had joined Mr. Ingram’s staff, he had edited a small periodical called The Mirror, devoted to useful and amusing literature. I fancy his happiest hours were passed chatting with the literary men who were always hovering round the office of the paper—like Mr. Micawber, in the hope of something turning up. You could not be long there without seeing Mark Lemon—a mountain of a man connected with Punch, who could act Falstaff without stuffing—who was Mr. Ingram’s private secretary. A wonderful contrast to Mark Lemon was Douglas Jerrold, a little grey-haired, keen-eyed man, who seemed to me to walk the streets hurriedly, as if he expected a bailiff to touch him on the back. Later, I knew his son, Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, very well, and always found him a very courteous and pleasant gentleman. With Hain Friswell, with the ever-sparkling, black-eyed George Augustus Sala, with that life-long agitator Jesse Jacob Holyoake, for whom I had a warm esteem, I was also on very friendly terms. Once, and once only, I had an interview with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh who, when he recognised me as “Christopher Crayon” of The Christian World, gave me a hearty shake of the hands. Had he lived, I believe he would have become a Christian. At any rate, of later years, his hostility to Christianity seemed to have considerably toned down. Be that as it may, I always held him to be one of the most honest of our public men. I had also the pleasure once of sitting next Mr. Labouchere at a dinner at a friend’s. He talked much, smoked more, and was as witty as Waller, and like him on cold water. Another teetotaler with whom I came much into contact was the late Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, a shortish, stout man to look at, a good public speaker, and warmly devoted alike to literature and science. Another distinguished man whom I knew well was Mr. James Hinton, the celebrated aurist and a writer on religious matters which at one time had great effect. He was the son of the celebrated Baptist preacher, the Rev. John Howard Hinton, and I was grieved to learn that he had given up his practice as an aurist in Saville Row, and had bought an orange estate far away in the Azores, where he went to die of typhoid fever.

On the whole I am inclined to think I never had a pleasanter man to do with than Mr. Cobden. “Why don’t you commence a movement in favour of Free Trade in land?” I one day said to him. “Ah,” was his reply, “I am too old for that. I have done my share of work. I must leave that to be taken up by younger men.” And, strange to say, though this has always seemed to me the great want of the age, the work has been left undone, and all the nation suffers in consequence. As an illustration of Mr. Cobden’s persuasiveness let me give the following. Once upon a time he came to Norwich to address an audience of farmers there—in St. Andrew’s Hall, I think. On my asking an old Norfolk farmer what he thought of Mr. Cobden as a speaker, his reply was, “Why he got such a hold of us that if he had held up a sheet of white paper on the platform and said it was black, there was not a farmer in the hall but would have said the same.” Cobden never irritated his opponents. He had a marvellous power of talking them round. In this respect he was a wonderful contrast to his friend and colleague, John Bright.

A leading teetotaler with whom I had much to do was the late Mr. Smithies, founder of The British Workman and publications of a similar class. At an enormous expense he commenced his illustrated paper, full of the choicest engravings, and published at a price so as to secure them a place in the humblest home. For a long while it was published at a loss. But Mr. Smithies bravely held on, as his aim, I honestly believe, was to do good rather than make money. He was a Christian social reformer, a Wesleyan, indifferent to politics, as Wesleyans more or less were at one time. Square-built, of rather less than medium height, with a ruddy face, and a voice that could be heard all over Exeter Hall—he looked the picture of health and happiness. I never saw him frown but when I approached him with a cigar in my mouth. Mr. Smithies was one of the earliest to rally round the Temperance banner. His whole life was devoted to doing good in his own way. He never married, and lived with his mother, a fine old lady, who contrived to give her dutiful and affectionate son somewhat of an antiquated cast of thought, and never was he happier than when in the company of Lady Burdett Coutts or great Earl Shaftesbury.

I had also a good deal to do with Mr. W. H. Collingridge, who founded that successful paper, The City Press, which his genial son, Mr. G. Collingridge, still carries on. By means of my connection with The City Press I came into contact with many City leaders and Lord Mayors, and saw a good deal of City life at the Mansion House and at grand halls of the City Companies. I think the tendency in these days is much to run down the City Corporation. People forget that the splendid hospitality of the Mansion House helps to exalt the fame and power of England all the world over. Once upon a time I attended a Liberal public meeting at which two M.P.’s had spoken. One of the committee said to me, “Now you must make a speech.” My reply was that there was no need to do so, as the M.P.’s had said all that was required. “Oh, no,” said my friend, “not a word has been said about the Corporation of London. Pitch into them!” “No, no,” I replied. “I have drunk too much of their punch and swallowed too much of their turtle-soup.” I will never run down the City Fathers, many of whom I knew and respected, and at whose banquets men gathered—not merely City people, but the leading men of all the world. The glory of the Mansion House is the glory of the land.

I could go on for a long while. Have I not been to soirÉes at great men’s houses and met all sorts and conditions of people? Only two men have I given myself the trouble to be introduced to—one was Barnum, because he frankly admitted he was a humbug, though he seemed a decent fellow enough in private life. Another was Cetewayo, the jolliest-looking Kaffir I ever saw, and I went to see him because our treatment of him was a shame and a national disgrace. Once on a time as we were waiting for Royalty on a distant platform, one of the committee offered to introduce me to H.R.H. I declined, on the plea that I must draw the line somewhere, and that I drew it at princes, but oh! the vanity of wasting one’s time in society. Of the gay world, perhaps the wittiest and pleasantest, as far as my personal experience is concerned, was the late Charles Mathews. I had seen him on the stage and met him in his brougham and talked with him, and once I was invited to a grand party he gave to his friends and admirers. As I went into the reception-room I wondered where the jaunty and juvenile actor could be. All at once I saw a venerable, bald-headed old man coming down on me. Oh! I said to myself, this must be the butler coming to account for his master’s absence. Lo, and behold! it was Charley Mathews himself!