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316
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
tended a soiree given by George Cruikshank, at his house
in Mornington Place, and no pleasure-gathering was more
thoroughly enjoyable; we are glad to number him, with
his noble wife, among our dearest friends in England.
He is a man whom none can know without loving; and
we can attest the truthfulness of the statement, that
“among the supporters of the temperance cause, at public
meetings, there is not one whose speeches abound with
greater common sense, or with more happy and amusing
observations on the subject in its various bearings.”
The name of George Cruikshank will be known to pos¬
terity as an artist, by his inimitable etchings, and as the
prince of living humourists; but his name will ever be
held in esteem as a moral reformer, whose wit and humour
have always been enlisted and exercised on the side of
virtue. In private he is simply delightful, and one of the
most valuable additions to my library, is a collection of
his etchings I have been gathering for years, now num¬
bering nearly twelve hundred, which I hope to make yet
more complete.
On the 12th of August we all paid a visit to Houghton,
and were entertained by Mr. George Brown and Potto
Brown, spending our time delightfully there till the 25th,
when I ran up to London for the first speech in Exeter
Hall, returning next day to Houghton, and remaining
there till the 31st, when we went to Manchester, visiting
the “Art Treasures” on exhibition, and holding a meeting
in Free Trade Hall, then on to Preston, reaching Edin¬
burgh on September 3d. We took our old lodgings at
the Waverley, and looked about for a “flat,”—that is, a
suit of rooms on one floor,—the houses in Scotland, many
of them, being divided into flats, with apartments for a
family on each floor, a stairway from the street being
common to all. We moved into 118 Princes Street, and