They were most favourably received, and the
last letters which I had from him spoke of the pleasure which this
success gave him. Three editions of his book ("John Leech, and Other
Essays") were published in some six weeks. All seemed to go well, and
one might even have hoped that, with renewed strength, he would take up
his pen again. But his strength was less than we had hoped. A cold
settled on his lungs, and, in spite of the most affectionate nursing, he
grew rapidly weaker. He had little suffering at the end, and his mind
remained unclouded. No man of letters could be more widely regretted,
for he was the friend of all who read his books, as, even to people who
only met him once or twice in life, he seemed to become dear and
familiar.
In one of his very latest writings, "On Thackeray's Death," Dr. Brown
told people (what some of them needed, and still need to be told) how
good, kind, and thoughtful for others was our great writer--our greatest
master of fiction, I venture to think, since Scott. Some of the lines
Dr. Brown wrote of Thackerary might be applied to himself: "He looked
always fresh, with that abounding silvery hair, and his young, almost
infantile face"--a face very pale, and yet radiant, in his last years,
and mildly lit up with eyes full of kindness, and softened by sorrow. In
his last year, Mr. Swinburne wrote to Dr. Brown this sonnet, in which
there seems something of the poet's prophetic gift, and a voice sounds as
of a welcome home:--
"Beyond the north wind lay the land of old,
Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed
With joy's bright raiment, and with love's sweet bread,--
The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold,
None there might wear about his brows enrolled
A light of lovelier fame than rings your head,
Whose lovesome love of children and the dead
All men give thanks for; I, far off, behold
A dear dead hand that links us, and a light
The blithest and benignest of the night,--
The night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be
A star to show your spirit in present sight
Some happier isle in the Elysian sea
Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.
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