Early  in  1852  my  father  and  mother  went  on  a  visit
to  one  of  his  old  College  friends,  Mr.  Rashdall  the  cler-
gyman of  Malvern,  and  met  the  Carlyles  and  Sydney
Dobell  \  Rashdall  was  a  man  so  beloved  by  his  parish-
ioners, and  so  simple  and  direct  in  his  language  from  the
pulpit,  that  he  had  emptied  the  Dissenting  Chapels  for
miles  round.  He  would  often  hold  his  Church  services
in  the  fields.  A  flowery  record  of  Spring  follows  in  my
mother's  journal,  about  the  beauty  of  the  daffodils,  wood
anemones,  primroses,  and  violets ;  the  pear  trees  through-
out the  country  in  bloom  "like  springing  and  falling
fountains."  While  they  were  there  my  father  read
Dr  Wordsworth's  Apocalypse  to  my  mother.  On  their
return  to  Twickenham,  he  visited  the  Exhibition,  and  was
delighted  with  Millais'  "Ophelia"  and  "The  Huguenot,'*
but  liked  "The  Huguenot"  much  the  best.  They  came
to  know  the  Peels  at  Marble  Hill,  and  Archibald  Peel
(the  General's  son)  pointed  out  the  avenue  in  which  Sir
Walter  Scott  placed  the  interview  between  Jeanie  Deans
and  Queen  Caroline.     Happy  days  were  spent  in  the

^  Mr  Briton  Riviere  writes  to  me :  ^  I  asked  my  brother-in-law,  Sydney
Dobell,  to  describe  your  father  to  me,  and  he  said :  '  If  he  were  pointed  out
to  you  as  the  man  who  had  written  the  niad^  you  would  answer,  ^I  can  well
bcUeveit."'"

355  «3— a


356  TWICKENHAM.  [l852

little  Twickenham  garden,  my  father  reading  aloud  pas-
sages of  any  book  which  struck  him.  Layard's  Nimeveh
and  Herschel's  Astronomy  were  read  at  this  time.
