XXX11 MEMOIR
interest in all the questions of life—political, scien-
tific, domestic. It was this combination of traits
which made him so essentially ‘human.’ As was
well said of him in one of the notices which appeared
in the spring of last year, ‘the man was more than
his books ’—and this, perhaps, was only fully realised
by those who were most intimately connected with
him. His conversation was of a peculiarly brilliant
order, sparkling with epigram and illustration, and
with what, for lack of a better term, may perhaps be
described as metaphorical analogies. His knack of
placing himself on the same standing with even the
most trivial of those who had intercourse with him ;
his unfailing patience with the endless and, as it
often seemed, wanton demands of his questioners; his
chivalric courteousness to those below him in station ;
his wise friendship, in the exercise of which he would
never spare himself; his tenderness and love for chil-
dren and for animals—all these qualities, combined
with his great acquirements, and lightened and vivified
by his penetration and humour, made him that which
he was, and was worthy to be called: the model of
a Christian scholar and gentleman.