The youngest of the group was Frederick Leighton, my junior, and my particular friend. He had dark and refined features, with curling hair.
I met David Leighton again at Baden Baden in 1832, among the fashionable crowds from all nations. He was chaplain to the English residents of the place. I have heard nothing more of this fine family from that time to this.
I asked him what he had done at Cambridge. His answer was, that he had disgusted his whole family.
Another contemporary, one who made some figure in professional life, was Lawson Cape. As a boy he was the greediest of readers. His father brought him historical works week after week, and he devoured their contents as fast as they reached him. He was short, fair-haired, freckled, quick at reading, quick at learning, quick at looking about him. It was difficult to follow his movements, so excited were they on all occasions. I met him again at Florence, during the carnival. I saw him abroad once more at Baden Baden, after which he settled in London as an accoucheur, when I came across him for the last time.
He was related to Sir Charles Locock, and through his influence acquired an obstetric practice in town.
[1] He died at the beginning of 1892, after entering his eighty-fourth year. He was two months my senior. I have later on made a distinction between early friends and later ones, dwelling on the fact that what happens to us before we have attained our full growth is nourished as a part of us, and so becomes ingrained in our natures.