OF IOWA Francis Turner Palgrave RY HIS JOURNALS AND MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE BY Gwenllian F. Palgrave What should a man desire to leave? Or in life's homeliest, meanest spot, A perfect curve through joys and tears, Ah, 'tis but little that the best, Frail children of a fleeting hour, When man lies down to rest! LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1899 All rights reserved PREFACE THIS little sketch of my father's life has been attempted at the wish, not only of many personal friends, but also of some who have only known him through the 'Golden Treasury' or his hymns. It has been greatly aided by his own journals, which are quoted at some length, for in them he speaks for himself, expressing many thoughts and opinions which could not otherwise have been so plainly given. Moreover, they especially help to fill the gap resulting from the comparative scarcity of his own letters. This scarcity is partly due, unhappily, to the fact that very many of my father's contemporaries have died during the last ten years, the letters in these cases having been usually destroyed. The sole correspondence which had been preserved in any sense of completeness was between him and Mr. Gladstone-generally on purely literary subjects-but the letters from Mr. Gladstone have had to be inevitably omitted, in deference to the wishes of his trustees. Then, again, my father, when looking over a large portion of the late Lord Tennyson's correspondence, burned the majority of |