Next, I do not know that I have mentioned the late learned Norman poet, _George Métivier_, as having long ago translated my "Proverbial Philosophy" into French; he died at a great age, I think past ninety, and was highly honoured by his native Guernsey, through life and death; I remember him with much gratitude for his labour of love in respect of my book. Through many years also I have corresponded with another Norman poet, _John Sullivan_, whose very clever French poems I have often versified into English for him, and he has returned the compliment by sending translated fly-leaves of mine over the Gallic world.
Let one more in this authorial category be the excellent and learned _Canon R.C. Jenkins_, whom I have known from his childhood, and who in these latter years has routed out for me, chiefly out of Zedler's "Genealogical Encyclopædia," the heraldry and ancestry of my own Thuringian pedigree; the Canon being one of our keenest antiquaries in that line, and having German at his fingers' ends. He comes, as I do, from old Lutheran stock, and is full both of prose and poetry of a high class. My best regards to him and his.
The _Rev. Wm. Barnes_, of Dorset dialect fame, is another memory; as also in years past the late _Chevalier de Chatelain_, a relative of my Norwood friend, _Victor de Pontigny_, a well-known musical authority.
No doubt I have corresponded with most of the literary men of my day, from Tennyson to--well, I will not sound a bathos, but I do not publish private notes without permission, and in fact there would be no end of such printed amenities of literature battledored and shuttlecocked from one to another. I may, however, mention as a good habit of mine (is it not a good one?) that, whenever I like a book, I take leave to thank its author, and have usually received, _en révanche_, warm letters of their gratitude from many, especially if young ones. Surely it is proper in a veteran so to encourage a juvenile or even a mature brother, should he seem to deserve it. As also, be it known, that sometimes I have taken up the pen faithfully and honestly to rebuke: in these realistic and atheistic days there are some modern writers, both of prose and poetry, older or younger, who have reason to thank me for timely expostulations,--if they have attended to my friendly strictures.