"'May I come to you with wife and family for a few days? I am dying of "Dixie's Land."'

"He came, and the very first day after dinner, on taking our evening stroll round the garden, our ears were greeted with the hateful tune! The village band had just mastered the homicidal air, and were inadvertently making themselves particeps crimines in the murder of my friend. I shall never forget his delightful smile as, when the doleful tune burst upon our ears, he said:

"'Ah, well! "Dixie's Land" in Brunswick Square and "Dixie's Land" at Moulton Grange are two very different tunes; in the latter case a mile of atmosphere intervenes between it and me, and in the former I was in the very bowels of it.'

"He was fond of going to see a meet with hounds, but he was no rider. He once asked me to sell him a horse I was riding, on the ground of its apparent quietness. I declined doing this because it was not right in its wind.

"'All the better,' said he; 'it will not be able to run away far;' and he bought it.

"He was fond of being here (at Moulton Grange), and used to enjoy taking quiet rides along the lanes, and over the many-acred, well-gated grass fields, full of heavy Hertford and Devon cattle; and many a delightful chat have I had with him in rebus Punchibus, its contributors, artists, publishers, editors, etc. I am inclined to think that the man he liked best in the world was R. Hole, and then Thackeray and Millais; but of course I cannot say this with any certainty."

I stop Mr. Nethercote's narrative for a moment for Mrs. Leech to be heard; that lady assured Canon Hole—now Dean of Rochester—after Leech's death, that the two men whom her husband loved best in the world were himself and Millais. Thackeray was asked to name the man he loved above all others, and he named Leech; but on another occasion, when he was asked the same question by his daughter, as recorded in Fitzgerald's "Memoirs," he said:

"Why, Fitz, to be sure; and next to him Brookfield."

We will now listen again to Mr. Nethercote, who says:

"By his desire I accompanied him one night to see 'Lord Dundreary,' and I shall never forget his dismay on seeing that neither the farce nor the acting had 'fetched' me. He could not understand my feeling that the whole thing was non-natural, and that no lord who ever lived was half so great a fool as Lord Dundreary.

"On one occasion he was staying at Moulton Grange on the eve of the great fight between Tom Sayers and Heenan. A lady of great beauty, one of the party, was enlarging overnight on the brutality of all prize-fights, and expressed a hope that this fight might be prevented. On hearing of Sayers' conduct in the fight, the lady could not help expressing her admiration of his bravery, whereon Leech made a charming sketch of his fair friend crowning Sayers with a laurel-wreath, and entitled it 'Beauty crowning Valour.'

"I need not say how greatly the sketch is valued by its possessors.

"Leech used to like hearing his work criticised by friendly amateurs, and seemed to take in and, as it were, masticate their comments.

"I remember once, over our after-dinner cigar, telling him that I considered he failed in portraying the periphery of a wheel—that he made it over-fluffy—and failed also in drawing a stake and bound fence.

"The latter he admitted, and begged me to find him a model to study. This I did, and an excellent 'stake and bound' appeared in the Punch of the following Wednesday.

"He stuck to his wheel, and doubtless he was right and I was wrong.

"The last letter I received from him was in reply to an invitation to come for a week's shooting. I knew that he had been ill, and hoped it might do him good. His answer was:

"'Shoot, my dear Nethercote; I couldn't walk round a turnip.'

"When that was written the end was not far off. The news reached me as I left home to hunt, and heavy indeed was my heart all that day, and for many a succeeding one, and still is when I think of him, the warmest-hearted, most generous, gracious, kindly, hospitable, endearing friend that man ever had.

"Such are some of the recollections of my dear friend, written off in a hurry. If they prove of any use to you, you are most welcome to them.

"H. O. Nethercote.

"October 12, 1885."