“You perhaps think that you are known to one with such multifarious occupations as myself, merely by general reputation as an author; but I assure you that there can be little, which you have written and acknowledged, which I have not read; and that there are few who can appreciate and admire more than myself, the good sense and good feeling which have taught you to infuse so much fun and merriment into writings correcting folly and exposing absurdities, and yet never trespassing beyond those limits within which wit and facetiousness are not very often confined.  You may write on with the consciousness of independence, as free and unfettered, as if no communication had ever passed between us.  I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am fulfilling the intentions of the legislature, which has placed at the disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable, indeed, in amount) to be applied to the recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown.  If you will review the names of those whose claims have been admitted on account of their literary or scientific eminence, you will find an ample confirmation of the truth of my statement.

“One return, indeed, I shall ask of you,—­that you will give me the opportunity of making your personal acquaintance.”

And Hood, writing to a friend, enclosing a copy of Peel’s letter, says, “Sir R. Peel came from Burleigh on Tuesday night, and went down to Brighton on Saturday.  If he had written by post, I should not have it till to-day.  So he sent his servant with the enclosed on Saturday night; another mark of considerate attention.”  He is frightfully unwell, he continues:  his wife says he looks quite green; but ill as he is, poor fellow, “his well is not dry.  He has pumped out a sheet of Christmas fun, is drawing some cuts, and shall write a sheet more of his novel.”

Oh, sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain!  How noble Peel’s figure is standing by that sick-bed! how generous his words, how dignified and sincere his compassion!  And the poor dying man, with a heart full of natural gratitude towards his noble benefactor, must turn to him and say—­“If it be well to be remembered by a Minister, it is better still not to be forgotten by him in a ‘hurly Burleigh!’” Can you laugh?  Is not the joke horribly pathetic from the poor dying lips?  As dying Robin Hood must fire a last shot with his bow—­as one reads of Catholics on their death-beds putting on a Capuchin dress to go out of the world—­here is poor Hood at his last hour putting on his ghastly motley, and uttering one joke more.

He dies, however, in dearest love and peace with his children, wife, friends; to the former especially his whole life had been devoted, and every day showed his fidelity, simplicity, and affection.  In going through the record of his most pure, modest, honorable life, and living along with him, you come to trust him thoroughly, and feel that here is a most loyal, affectionate, and upright soul, with whom you have been brought into communion.  Can we say as much of the lives of all men of letters?  Here is one at least without guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted.