The only time I ever saw Miss Bacon was in London, where she had lodgings in Spring Street, Sussex Gardens, at the house of a grocer, a portly, middle-aged, civil, and friendly man, who, as well as his wife, appeared to feel a personal kindness towards their lodger.  I was ushered up two (and I rather believe three) pair of stairs into a parlor somewhat humbly furnished, and told that Miss Bacon would come soon.  There were a number of books on the table, and, looking into them, I found that every one had some reference, more or less immediate, to her Shakspearian theory,—­a volume of Raleigh’s “History of the World,” a volume of Montaigne, a volume of Lord Bacon’s letters, a volume of Shakspeare’s plays; and on another table lay a large roll of manuscript, which I presume to have been a portion of her work.  To be sure, there was a pocket-Bible among the books, but everything else referred to the one despotic idea that had got possession of her mind; and as it had engrossed her whole soul as well as her intellect, I have no doubt that she had established subtile connections between it and the Bible likewise.  As is apt to be the case with solitary students, Miss Bacon probably read late and rose late; for I took up Montaigne (it was Hazlitt’s translation) and had been reading his journey to Italy a good while before she appeared.

I had expected (the more shame for me, having no other ground of such expectation than that she was a literary woman) to see a very homely, uncouth, elderly personage, and was quite agreeably disappointed by her aspect.  She was rather uncommonly tall, and had a striking and expressive face, dark hair, dark eyes, which shone with an inward light as soon as she began to speak, and by-and-by a color came into her cheeks and made her look almost young.  Not that she really was so; she must have been beyond middle-age:  and there was no unkindness in coming to that conclusion, because, making allowance for years and ill-health, I could suppose her to have been handsome and exceedingly attractive once.  Though wholly estranged from society, there was little or no restraint or embarrassment in her manner:  lonely people are generally glad to give utterance to their pent-up ideas, and often bubble over with them as freely as children with their new-found syllables.  I cannot tell how it came about, but we immediately found ourselves taking a friendly and familiar tone together, and began to talk as if we had known one another a very long while.  A little preliminary correspondence had indeed smoothed the way, and we had a definite topic in the contemplated publication of her book.