doubtful, but there could be no doubt that the end was near. He prepared
himself to meet it. He sent friendly messages of farewell to those he
loved, begging, too, that if what he had ever said had pained any one, he
might now be forgiven. His mind was made up, and his children were all
about him. On a fine evening in the first week of June, he was moved to the
window, that he might see the sun setting. On Monday, the eighth of that
month, being perfectly conscious almost till the very last, he died.

The time is not yet come to discuss what his ultimate place will be in
the literature of his century. It will not be denied that he was a man of
rare gifts, and of a remarkable experience in life; and his life and the
popularity of his writings will by and by help posterity to understand
this our generation. Meanwhile I shall leave him in his resting-place in
Norwood, among the hills and fields of Surrey, near the grave of the friend
of his youth, the gentle and gifted Laman Blanchard, where he was laid on
the 15th of June, amidst a concourse of people not often assembled round
the remains of one who has begun life as humbly as he did.

His death made a great impression; and the acuteness with which his friends
felt it said more than could be said in a long dissertation for the kindly
and love-inspiring qualities of the man. As soon as it appeared that his
family were left in less prosperous circumstances than had been hoped,
their interest took an active form. A committee met to organize a plan
by which the genius of those who had known Jerrold might be employed in
raising a provision for his family. The rest has been duly recorded in the
newspapers, where the success of these benevolent exertions may be read.