memories; for they were bright and beautiful exceedingly, and I can only sigh as I say :—

"O, the tender grace of a day that is dead,

Can never come back to me."

We sat at breakfast, looking through the low window at the surging crowd below, when the servant brought in the morning letters, three in number, and placed them on the table: one from over the water, another from Rochdale, and still another, in a plain commercial hand. "I know that hand," said Wilkes.

"Richard Cobden's!"

"Yes."

Among my letters of introduction was one from Mr. Lincoln and one from the philosopher of the Tribune. I had sent the latter to Midhurst, and this was the reply:

"DEAR SIR:

"DURFORD, NEAR MIDHURST, }

"I have received your letter here. It will give me pleasure to see you, but I am in an inaccessible place, owing to the want of railway communication.

"If you will take the trouble to come and see me, I shall be happy to receive you, and shall have a bed at your service.

"I send, on the other side, particulars of the railway trains. The train which leaves Waterloo Station for Hazelmere, at 5 P. M., is in connection with an omnibus which comes on direct to Midhurst, at which place you will find a fly to bring you to my house, which is a mile and a half from the latter place. You take your ticket for HazelYours, very truly,

mere.

"RICHARD COBDEN."

The other letter, which I am tempted to quote here, was from the friend and companion of Mr. Cobden, on the hustings, in Parliament, or at the fireside.

Their communication was constant, and I think there was scarcely a day in the week when they had not some tidings of each other. If John Bright had more of the fire and nerve of the Cromwelliau period, Mr. Cobden did not fail to move and mold the world around him by his sincerity, his force of character, as well as by his winning and womanly delicacy of soul. Richard Cobden, too, was remarkable for the keenness of his perceptions and tenacity of purpose. Once grap

pling fairly with a question, he never let go till he had vanquished his adversary and saved his cause. Richard Cobden was an exemplification of the truthful saying attributed to Coleridge, that he never knew a "truly great man that had not more or less of the feminine element in him."

John Bright's letter, written in a bold, yet delicate business hand, read thus:

"DEAR SIR:

"It will be most convenient to us, for you to come here on Thursday of next week, the 31st instant, or, on Friday, the first day of the New Year. When you have fixed your plans, I will thank you to let us know when I may expect you.

"If you are intending to sail on Saturday, I hope you will be able to come here on Thursday. The news from the States, this morning, is satisfactory, but I am anxious to see the text of the message.

"The winter will sorely try the Southern armies, and I suspect they will not be stronger in the spring than they are now.

"The proclamation of amnesty and security of property, other than slave property, will, I think, tend to break down the rebellion during the winter. Yours, very truly,

"JOHN BRIGHT."

At five o'clock, after sunset, of what, for English skies, one might safely call a bright day, the train whistled off and out of Waterloo Station, in the heart of London. We sped to where the fields stood "dressed in living green." It was late when we reached Hazelmere, and all I remember of that station is a pleasant impression of the seashells, artistically arranged along the hillside, so that they spelled the word "Hazelmere."

The regular stage coach took me to Midhurst, an old-fashioned English town, with nothing remarkable except the landlord of "mine inn." Here I found Mr. Cobden's servant awaiting me with the "fly" mentioned in the great Commoner's note.

It was a brief ride and a delightful one, through the valleys and over the hills of Sussex, toward the home of this modest great man, whose whole life, and whose latest, as well as his earliest utterances, had shown him to be the true friend of the human race, "whose sole aim was so to modify existing institutions, by proper and equitable methods, that all who live under the same government may be equal partakers in its benefits, and to bring all the blessings of life within the reach of the largest number." About nine o'clock the driver

reined up in front of a two-story house, not remarkable for splendor, but suggestive of wealth and comfort.

The great Commoner came out to meet the "fly" and welcomed me most cordially to Durford, for though his country home was usually designated Midhurst, Durford was the name of the place since the day of his birth, and it was only after the Anti-Corn-Law League grew in power and popularity; after the Corn Laws were repealed; and after national gratitude had assumed the shape of a gift of $350,000, that Mr. Cobden was able to buy the old homestead which had been sold from his father. Here he was born; here he died; and here his widow and daughters yet mourn the loss of the manliest spirit that ever tenanted human form.

After accompanying me in person to the guest-chamber, we came down together to supper, and enjoyed a substantial meal, not forgetting a glass of rare red Madeira. Of the household I saw only Mrs. Cobden, a noble woman, with what Tennyson might designate "quiet eyes still faithful to the truth;" for she had been her husband's companion in the bitterest strife attending the Anti-Corn-Law agitation, before Sir Robert Peel became convinced, against the remonstrances of the landed and agricultural interests, of the justice of the people's cause and of the wisdom of the Commoner's course.

Richard Cobden may be said to have begun his public life in 1841, in the first year of Sir Robert Peel's second administration.

In 1837 Mr. C. had visited France, Belgium, and Switzerland. In 1838 he went through Germany and came home a Free Trader.

In 1839 Mr. Cobden first established the powerful Anti-Corn-Law League, after Mr. Villiers's motion to repeal the bread tax was defeated in the House of Commons.

was.

It was evident that the struggles through which he had gone had made Mr. Cobden, in appearance only, an old man before three score and ten. He was born in 1804, in Sussex County, near Midhurst. His hair was silvered with gray, but there was that sympathy in him—the Italians name it sympatico-added to the glow of a conscious and cultured intellect, which made him seem much younger than he really He was seated by a pleasant wood fire, and began at once to talk of American affairs; for the two subjects which seemed nearest his heart were: 1st. The ultimate triumph of the Union against the combined powers of the Rebellion, the Devil, and Jefferson Davis; and the success of the Union arms he never permitted himself to doubt, inside or outside of Parliament. 2d. His hope, cherished till he died, that Lord Palmerston could be permanently driven from

power, for he confessed to extreme contempt for the jaunty ways and cynical optimism of the Premier.

In our conversation, Mr. Cobden expressed his opinion that Mr. Seward was a "light weight;" thought he had a fatal fluency with his pen; wrote too much and thought too little. He was Englishman enough to regret that Mr. Seward had taken ground that England had no right whatever to send arms to the rebels, Mr. C. contending that the contrary of this was the law of nations, and thought the right of individuals to furnish arms to aid rebellion even could be traced to the days of Thomas Jefferson.

He told me an amusing anecdote of Mason, of Virginia, who was a United States Senator when Mr. Cobden first visited America. The English Commoner was the center of attraction, partly because he was well known to entertain Free-Trade notions, chiefly, perhaps, because he, Mr. C., was then a notable man.

Much to his surprise, Mr. Mason asked Mr. Cobden to take a glass of whisky from some point in the immediate neighborhood of his place in the Senate (N. B. this liquor is now called, by the Hon. Garrett Davis, the vernacular drink of Kentucky).

After extending, as above mentioned, the courtesies of the Senate, Mr. Mason observed Senator Seward walking across the Senate Chamber, when, with true Virginia hauteur, he drew himself up, and said, looking toward Seward, "Mr. Cobden, profligate demagogue, that!!" Mr. Cobden never told that story without a merry twinkle in his eye.

I had just finished the life of Cavour, who was personally known to Mr. C. He compared him to Stephen A. Douglas; and thought Cavour was his equal in audacity and power, but a statesman not great in moral purpose. He talked much of Mr. Seward, and ranked him with Lord Palmerston, whom he cordially hated; but gave Mr. Seward the credit of being one of the most adroit and successful politicians in the world, but denied to him the rank of a first-class statesman.

Mr. Cobden said that he was not sure Wendell Phillips was not the foremost thinker in America, and he was very clear that Phillips was the best man in America to send to England to give the English an idea of the length and breadth of our struggle for self-government. He said, the clear ringing sentences of the Boston orator were pleasing to the English ear; and that his terse, epigrammatic style would make friends for America wherever he went.

On the evening of my arrival he had just written his last letter to Delane, of the London Times. The "Thunderer" had always, prior

to this time, hid behind its "impersonality argument:" that no one man was responsible for any thing said in the columns of the London Times. Walter, who, Mr. Cobden said, wanted to be a Peer, and hence his toadyism to the aristocracy, and Delane, the chief writer for the Times, had made bitter and continued personal attacks on Mr. Cobden, ever since he negotiated, at the request of his own Government, the celebrated French treaty at Paris. But of this newspaper war between the Times and Cobden came this good result, which was a substantial victory for the latter, that the editor of the "Thunderer" henceforth avowed his responsibility, and gave his name, no longer. hiding behind the shield of "impersonality."

In the scan. mag. case, in which Lord Palmerston's name was connected, and about which case London society was then on the qui vive, in 1863, he thought the witnesses would mysteriously disappear when most needed, and that the appliances of corruption, so well known to the janty Premier, would be successful in whitewashing him for the public eye. I believe the prophecy was not far wrong.

Mr. Cobden spoke feelingly upon the fact that Mackay (the quasi poet) was pensioned, at $800 per annum, by Lord Palmerston, from the Literary Fund, for traveling through America, vilifying our Government, and writing secession letters.

He denounced it as an outrage, and wished it named to the New York press. He thought Abraham Lincoln had acted throughout the war with great prudence and dignity, and considered the election of 1864 as deciding the fate of the Republic. He did not know whether any Republic was strong enough, peacefully, to elect a President at the ballot-box during a civil war. He seemed to have a lurking tenderness for McClellan, but said it was on account of his reticence under attacks from the newspaper press generally. He paused a moment at my expression, that the "abuse of greatness is when remorse disjoins from power." He thought the line expressed a great truth, and said "Jeff. Davis will never die of remorse." Osborne, of the Illinois Central Railroad, had written to him, naming a great number of the prominent leaders of the Rebellion who had died so soon after the war commenced.

Alexander H. Stephens he thought would outlive most of the others, because his heart was not at first with the Rebellion—if, indeed, he said, it ever was. He gave me to understand that a large investment had been made by him in the State of Illinois, and he once cherished the idea of coming to America to live. He soon abandoned this idea,