On my return from Scotland, that year, perhaps late in September, I remember finding him lodged⁴ straitly but cheerfully, and in happy humor, in a little cottage on Blackheath; whither his Father one day persuaded me to drive out with him for dinner. Our welcome, I can still recollect⁵, was conspicuously⁶ cordial; the place of dinner a kind of upper room, half garret and full of books, which seemed to be John's place of study. From a shelf, I remember also, the good soul took down a book modestly enough bound in three volumes, lettered on the back Carlyle's French Revolution, which had been published lately; this he with friendly banter⁷ bade me look at as a first symptom, small but significant, that the book was not to die all at once. "One copy of it at least might hope to last the date of sheep-leather," I admitted,—and in my then mood the little fact was welcome. Our dinner, frank and happy on the part of Sterling, was peppered with abundant jolly satire⁸ from his Father: before tea, I took myself away; towards Woolwich, I remember, where probably there was another call to make, and passage homeward by steamer: Sterling strode along with me a good bit of road in the bright sunny evening, full of lively friendly talk, and altogether kind and amiable⁹; and beautifully sympathetic with the loads he thought he saw on me, forgetful of his own. We shook hands on the road near the foot of Shooter's Hill:—at which point dim

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