the art of the raconteur, racy gossip of the most brilliant kind, would naturally enliven the most accidental meetings. As a small boy I was often a delighted listener; and the intense interest with which I silently assisted at such interviews must have amused my elders. This frequent opportunity of hearing the impromptu utterances of broad-minded, unconventional, cultured, travelled, and high-toned men and women was a distinct and valuable element in my education. I consciously enjoyed it at the time; and in later years I have learned to attach to it afar higher value than it was possible for me then to ascribe to it. Literature, art, travel, the more important contemporary events at home and abroad, men of note, the latest developments of intellectual life—everything was at one time or another touched upon from the standpoint of an intimate knowledge both of the subjects and of the personal actors in the events.
Among these rare “ gossipers,” were not only permanent residents in the town, but men who were birds of passage, or whose stay among us lasted only a year or two. One of these latter was Sam Philips, the brilliant author of the not-yet-forgotten “Essays from the Times,“ the writer of the first “Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park,“ the man who dared to “slate,” in the Times, Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin“ just when the furor of public admiration of it was at its strongest. I remember the glee with which he told of his deed; and I remember also the pain with which we heard that the genial satirist and keen critic and — which were the characteristics in him that most interested me at the time — the witty raconteur and amiable man, was dead.
As I am writing, my memory fills with the faces of many who earlier and later during the twenty years or so that these notes may be allowed to cover, formed part of the everyday life of the old town. Some I only knew as figures walking about among us, others I often listened to and, as I passed from small boy to young man, talked to, Among the former was Samuel Prout, who originated a new school of drawing sixty years ago, and who spent a part of his invalided life among us. Among the latter were several notable physicians: George Moore, best known to the public through his ‘Power of the Soul over the Body,’ and specially endeared to us by his attractive character; James Mackness, author of ‘The Moral Aspects of Medical Life,’ the highest authority half a century ago upon the pathology and treatment of clergyman’s sore throat, and one of the most active and popular of the citizens of Hastings; William Alexander Greenhill, a scholar as well as a, physician, a contemporary and -
