CHAPTER 14.

Letters of sympathy and condolence; from Sir Henry Barkly; Major Egerton Warburton; A.J.  Baker, Esquire; P.A.  Jennings, Esquire; Dr. Mueller; The Council of Ballaarat East; Robert Watson, Esquire; John Lavington Evans, Esquire—­Meeting at Totnes.—­Resolution to erect a Monument to Mr. Wills.—­Proceedings in the Royal Geographical Society of London.—­Letter from Sir Roderick Murchison to Dr. Wills.—­Dr. Wills’s Reply.—­’The Lost Explorers,’ a poetical tribute.—­Concluding Observations.

Appendices.

Illustrations: 

1.  The last hours of Mr. Wills.

Painted by Scott.  Melbourne.  London:  Richard Bentley, 1863. 
Engraved by J. Saddle.

2.  William J. Wills.

Painted by Scott.  Melbourne.  Engraved by J. Brown.

Biographical sketch.

CHAPTER 1.

Birth. 
Infancy. 
Boyhood and Early Education. 
Youthful Traits of Character.

William John Wills was born at Totnes, in Devonshire, on the 5th of January, 1834.  He had, therefore, attained the full age of twenty-seven at the time of his death.  Even in infancy, his countenance was interesting and expressive.  He began to speak and walk alone before he had completed his first year.  His lively disposition gave ample employment to his nurses, though I cannot remember that he ever worried one, through peevishness or a fractious temper.  As soon as he could talk distinctly, he evinced an aptitude to name things after his own fancy; and I may fairly say, that he was never a child in the common acceptation of the term, as he gave early indications of diligence and discretion scarcely compatible with the helplessness and simplicity of such tender years.  About the time of his completing his third year, Mr. Benthall, a friend and near neighbour, asked permission to take him for a walk in his garden.  The boy was then in the habit of attending a school for little children, close by, kept by an old lady.  In less than an hour, Mr. Benthall returned to ask if he had come home.  No one had seen him, and we began to be alarmed lest he might have fallen into a well in the garden; but this apprehension was speedily ascertained to be groundless.  Still he returned not, and our alarm increased, until his mother thought of the school, and there he was found, book in hand, intent on his lesson.  He knew it was the school hour, and while Mr. Benthall was speaking to the gardener, had managed to give him the slip, passing our own door and proceeding alone to the school, on the opposite side of the square.  Mr. Benthall, who can have seen or heard very little of him since, was one of the first, on hearing of his recent fate, to send a subscription to his monument, about to be erected at Totnes.  Perhaps he remembered the incident.