“Found in the way of God and righteousness,
A crown of glory is the hoary head.”
“Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C.
“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,
“April 30th, 1881.
“Dear Miss Cobbe,
“Had I not known your handwriting, I should never have guessed, either that you were the writer of the verses, or that I was the subject of them.
“Had I judged them simply by their ability and force, I might have ascribed them to the true Author; but it required the envelope, and the ominous word ‘eighty,’ to justify me in applying them to myself.
“They both touched and gratified me, but I will tell you the origin of my public career, which you have been so kind as to commend. It arose while I was a boy at Harrow School, about, I should think, fourteen years of age—an event occurred (the details of which I may give you some other day), which brought painfully before me the scorn and neglect manifested towards the Poor and helpless. I was deeply affected; but, for many years afterwards, I acted only on feeling and sentiment. As I advanced in life, all this grew up to a sense of duty; and I was convinced that God had called me to devote whatever advantages He might have bestowed upon me, to the cause of the weak, the helpless, both man and beast, and those who had none to help them.
“I entered Parliament in 1826, and I commenced operations in 1828, with an effort to ameliorate the conditions of lunatics, and then I passed on in a succession of attempts to grapple with other evils, and such has been my trade for more than half a century.