The same process of building up words from simple roots is carried on all through the whole range of thought and action; and the result as a whole is that, as a theoretical system, the entire subject is successfully worked out.
Whether it will ever be carried out in practice is extremely doubtful. Some Spanish enthusiasts were so enraptured with Mr. Edmonds's book that they sought and obtained an interview with the late Emperor Napoleon, with a view to secure his patronage of the new scheme. The expression of his opinion was short, but shrewd. He said the only way to establish universal language was to first establish universal empire; and that, he thought, would not be possible just yet.
In July, 1867, Mr. Edmonds, when 79 years of age, married, at the Old Church, Leamington, as his second wife, Miss Mary Fairfax, of Barford, near Warwick, the descendant of a truly noble family. She was 75 years of age at the time. Their natures and dispositions, however, being so very dissimilar, this proved to be an unhappy union, and after living together three weeks only, they separated by mutual consent. His mind at this time—and, indeed, for some previous time—must have been giving way. Eventually, he was placed in the asylum at Winson Green. From thence he was removed to a private asylum at Northampton, where he died in the year 1868, being 80 years of age.
His funeral at the General Cemetery was attended by most of the leading Liberals of the town, and by great crowds of admirers. Charles Vince, who was so soon to follow him, delivered a very eloquent address over the open grave, in which he said, "For the firmness with which he maintained his convictions, and for the zeal and ability with which he advocated them, he will always have a name and a place in the history of his native town, if not in the history of his country. To the honour of his memory it will be said that he held his opinions honestly; laboured for them diligently; devoted great gifts and rare energy to their promotion; and amply proved his sincerity, and won the crown of the conscientious, by the things that he suffered."
It is, in my opinion, not very creditable to the Liberal party in the town that George Edmonds has no public memorial. The generation passing away may remember his face and figure; but before it goes, it has a duty to its successors to perform. That duty is to leave some lasting memorial, in the shape of a statue, bust, or portrait, of the man, who, sacrificing his own freedom, helped thereby to gain for his countrymen liberty of thought, liberty of speech, and liberty to carry on in the future the beneficent policy which he advocated with, so much eloquence and perseverance.
THE EARLY DAYS OF CHARLES VINCE.
With reverent pen and loving spirit, I sit down to write of one whose sunny smile brightened every circle upon which it shone; whose massive intellect and clear mental vision discovered subtle truths and deep symbolic meanings in common things; whose winning and graphic eloquence made these truths and meanings clear to others, showing them that not a blade of grass springs by the roadside, nor an insect flutters for a day in the gladdening light of the spring-time, but has its lesson, if men will but search for it, of tender mercy and fatherly care. His broad and catholic spirit was wide enough to embrace within his friendship men of widely divergent thought and belief. His life was one long and eloquent lesson to us all. If ever man deserved the blessing following the words, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me," that man was Charles Vince, for of him, more emphatically than can be said of most of us, it may be recorded that "he went about doing good."
It is not necessary to sketch the mature character of one so recently taken from amongst us. The shadow of his homely figure has scarcely faded from our streets, and the sound of his eloquent voice still seems to vibrate in our ears. It seems but yesterday that, on that cold and cheerless day, his lifeless but honoured remains were borne to the grave through the crowds of sympathising people who thronged the busy streets to see the last of him they knew so well and loved so heartily. Little could be added to the warm tributes that were paid so recently to the memory of the gifted, truthful, fearless, earnest, hard-working Christian teacher, who, in the prime of his life and the zenith of his powers, was removed from the sphere which he adorned by the purity of his character, and benefited by the power and graces of his intellect.