"I would be bound to bother Acland, though I confess he is on his best ground. I had a fine triumph over him about the Poor Laws, in the Bolton Theatre, and never before nor since did I hear the phrase of 'Three cheers for Carlile'."
"November 13th, 1840.
"I have been rolling restlessly on the bed all this week since my return from London on Sunday, incapable of lying still any way for a quarter of an hour at a time, with a high (more than usual) inflammation of the chest. This is my first salute for the winter. I am now worse on Friday than on Monday, and have some fear that I shall not be able to go out soul saving on Sunday next. I shall go if there be a possibility to stand up and talk. I find that I have reached a point in my ever sanguine calculation, and that is that the time has come in which I can excite more interest in London than any of the Socialist or Chartist leaders. I have restored a lost audience to the Hall of Science, and have drawn well there; moreover, I have pleased. Have sold my books freely, and have brought home about £5 in four weeks, which is a welcome addition to my slender income. I work now on Sunday afternoons, as I have no evening vacancy. I am enquiring for a place of my own—but my health!"
"Enfield, March 17th, 1841.
"You would have been delighted on Sunday, the 27th, I had a Brindly-like opponent, who, however, could but regret that such splendid talent as he had to his astonishment witnessed that evening should be prostituted to so bad a purpose; and yet he talked himself quite round to me; paid me high compliments, and came to shake hands warmly. Owen, I hear, is veering round to some new point about colonisation, and offending his community party. Sir H. R. Inglis brought up my name in the House of Commons last Friday in the question of Jewish Emancipation. He wanted to know how a Jewish alderman could have met me? I immediately drew up a petition of my whole case, briefly as possible, praying for two things: examination on the question of ancient Jewish history, and compensation for damage and merit as soon as the Jews are introduced among the legal authorities of the country. Peel moves well in the item of scientific schools. I have told him this week that he has only to move into the Church with them to be all right. I will send your books with Baraclory's parcel. I may keep out one for my very good friend Charles Roach Smith, the chemist, of 5, Liverpool Street, City, who came out enthusiastically to lecture at the Rotunda when Mr. Taylor was sent to Horsemonger Lane Gaol. Mr. Smith is a young man much respected among the antiquarians. His papers are read in the Antiquarian Society, consisting of bishops and all sorts; and lately the Marquis of Northampton sent him a card of admission to his soirée as President of the Royal Society; so we swim. I feel myself growing daily in public interest, though the money does not flow in yet. My passion for doing public good is as strong as ever; it is tempered a little with the discretion of experience. I am now a regular correspondent of the Bolton Free Press; my signature is—'A Reformer of the People.'"
CHAPTER VI. CARLILE'S LAST YEARS
Here are two letters of much later date, and the last we have of his to Isis, except the one dated the 7th of December, 1842, with which we commenced the story of his life. By this time Carlile and Isis have come to the settled stage of ordinary married people.
"Richard Carlile to Elizabeth Sharples Carlile, Julian Carlile, and Hypatia Carlile.*
* Julian and Hypatia Carlile. Theophila was not born at that
time.