face! You would have sent—you would not
have left him—if he were alive! Oh papa,
papa!"

THE MAN OF ROSS.

"THE Man of Ross each lisping babe
replies." Not a bit of it—when I was at Ross
last summer (a pleasant place pleasantly
dedicated lo English honeymoons), I was
curious about John Kyrle the far-famed Man
of Ross; but, so far from finding a lisping babe
to tell me the brief story of his career, I
could not even find a servant girl to tell
me anything. I confess to feeling great
disappointment; but, when I reflected that
the greatest benefactors are often least
remembered near the spot where they have
accomplished the most good, and that many
a Christ's Hospital boy would never have
discovered that King Edward the Sixth was
the founder of his school but for the metal
buttons which he bore upon his coat, I was
content to think that Kyrle was in his
way quite as well known as King Edward;
and even better known than the founder of
Guy's hospital; which is more frequently
assigned to Guy Earl of Warwick or Guy
Faux, than to the wealthy dealer in books
and seamen's tickets, good, generous-hearted
Thomas Guy.

I mentioned my disappointment to an
elderly clergyman who sat by my side on the
coach which conveyed us from Ross to Hereford,
and added, what indeed is true, that
the very sexton of the heaven-directed spire
has but a sorry story to relate of the Man of
Ross. My companion observed that he knew
the story of the Man of Ross very well, and
that he would tell me what he knew. " I
know this county well," he began, "I come
from Gutheridge; " Goodrich, I gathered,
recollecting some of Pope's roguery about Swift,
and also that Sir Samuel Meyrick has brought
together in that place, the rich assemblage
of armour and antiquities so familiar to the
student of mediæval history.

"Well, sir, Pope derived the whole of his
knowledge of the Man of Ross from old Jacob
Tonson the bookseller, who lived at Ledbury,
some twelve miles from this, on the road
to Malvern and Worcester. He may have
heard of him through some of Swift's friends
—perhaps from Swift himself, whose grand-
father, as perhaps you will remember, died
vicar of Gutheridge, some two miles to our
left, and was buried there. Or he may have
heard of him through his friends the
Scudamores, who had a seat at Home Lacy, in this
county; or the Harleys of Wigmore in
Herefordshire; or through Lord Bathurst, whose
fine seat was in the adjoining county of
Gloucester. But I must on with my story.
Pope had heard of him, and when he was
engaged on that exquisite epistle of his—Of
the Use of Riches—he wrote to the old
bookseller for information about Kyrle. Now
John Kyrle had been dead when Pope
inquired about him at least eight years.
What Tonson wrote to Pope I cannot tell;
but Pope's acknowledgment of his communication,
on the subject has recently come to
light, and will of course be included in Mr.
Croker's long-promised edition of Pope. The
old bookseller, it is clear, sent many
particulars, which Pope used up with, as he
admits, ' a small exaggeration allowable to
poets.' He was determined, he says, that
his groundwork should be truth, and the
facts which Tonson sent him were more
than sufficient for his purpose. He admits
that many of the particulars were not over-
well adapted to shine in verse; but, that he
selected the most affecting, added two or
three which he had learned from other hands,
and relied on what painters call place and
contrast for any beauty which his verses
would possess. Indeed the little nightingale
was right. Nor was he wrong in his motive,
if I remember his words correctly. ' My
motive,' he says, ' for singling out this man
was twofold: first to distinguish real and
solid worth from showish or plausible
expense, and virtue from vanity; and secondly,
to humble the pride of greater men by an
opposition of one so obscure and so distant
from the sphere of public glory in a city so
proud as London.'"

On my observing that the letter containing
these curious particulars was altogether new
to me, he replied, " Yes!—new, I have no
doubt, to a great number." . . . The story
of the Man of Ross, I went on to remark,
deserves to be fully known; for if any man
shall ever happen to emulate his many virtues,
no manner of harm has been done if the poet
has made him think that Mr. Kyrle was
something more charitable and beneficent
than he really was. We seldom approach what
we desire to imitate: and he who would copy
the example of the Man of Ross will make no
worse use of his riches by the heightning
which the poet has given to his picture.

My friend was evidently struck with my
observation, but he was not convinced. "No,
sir," he replied, " narratives of romantic and
impracticable virtue are only read with
wonder; that which is unattainable is
recommended in vain; that good may be
endeavoured, it must be shown to be possible."

As I was not in the humour for moralising,
and was rather in quest of facts, from which
I could make my own deductions at leisure, I
nodded a kind of assent, and asked my friend
if the account in Pope, of the Man of Ross,
was not too long and pompous an
enumeration of public works and private charities,
for an income, as the poet asserts (clear of
debts, and taxes, wife, and children) of only five
hundred pounds a-year. And I added a doubt if
this really useful man had, from his own small
estate, actually performed all the good works
attributed to him in the poet's exemplary
picture. "No doubt of it," was the reply.