adequately represented by men of forty, or over, if that ground be admitted. It was the wisdom of forty that he intended to give his son per saltum without a stop at the intermediate stages. Poetry, it might almost be said, was the one point of repugnancy between the father and the son. There was a

felt difference between them. The father was enough under the spell of poetry to know its beguiling and weakening influences, and he knew how to separate the wheat from the chaff. He would make poetry do good work like any other beast.

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Shakspeare my father had put into my hands for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I went on to the others. My father never was a great admirer of Shakspeare, the English idolatry of which he used to attack with some severity. He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns, and Gray's 'Bard,' which he preferred to his Elegy;' perhaps I may add Cowper and Beattie. He had some value for Spenser, and I remember his reading to me (unlike his usual practice of making me read to him) the first book of the Faerie Queene,' but I took little pleasure in it. The poetry of the present century he saw scarcely any merit in, and I hardly became acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood, except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I read at his recommendation, and was intensely delighted with, as I always was with animated narrative."

At the age of twenty Mill was seized with one of those accesses of despondency which not unfrequently beset ardent and possibly overstrained minds in the course of their career. He says, "I frequently asked myself if I could, or if I was bound to, go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's 'Mémoires,' and came to the passage which relates his father's death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them-supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me was gone. I was no longer hopeless; I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of which all worth of character and all capacity for happiness are made. . . . . Thus the cloud gradually drew off, and I again enjoyed life."

....

An extraordinary proof of Mill's susceptibility to emotion was his absorbing devotion to the lady whom he finally married. For more than twenty years all his works were, as he persuaded himself, joint productions; and those thoughts which have contributed most to the success and reputation of his writings emanated, according to his belief, from her genius. He thus refers to her his estimate of Mr. Carlyle :-" I knew that I could not see round him, and could never be certain that I saw over him, and I never presumed to judge him with any definiteness, until he was interpreted to me by one greatly the superior of us both, who was more of a poet than he, and more of a thinker than I, whose own mind and nature included his, and infinitely

more." That a lady who never wrote anything, and who, except by a pas sionate lover, was not known ever to have thought or said anything worth recording, was far superior in extent and degree of power to a man whose lofty genius has been proved by writings of the highest order, is a paradox not to be accepted on the authority of a blind admirer. It may be believed that Mr. Mill is justified in tracing to the influence of his wife the change or deterioration of his economic doctrines by the admixture of socialism in his later writings. The encroachment of feeling and philanthropy on science would be a natural result of feminine influence. In other respects the supposed share of Mrs. Mill in the productions of her husband was probably the result of his wishes and his fancy.

The weakest part of Mr. Mill's career is the part in which he tried to apply his theories to human life. From the age of sixteen he was eager to reform the world, but he never at any time had much of a standard to reform it by. Benthamism, however admirable as affording an answer to problems capable of clear and systematic solution, fails where the mixed conditions of human nature are in question, and the ultimate sanction of morals was a point on which Mr. Mill could never express himself without ambiguity. His uttered opinion would seem to have been that the actual world was very contemptible, and that all its arrangements ought to be broken down; but that, somehow or other, quite a different and a very much better world, of which he had no distinct notion at all, so far as can be gathered from his books, lay behind it. His career would have been more consistent and imposing if he had narrowed it a good deal, especially in his later life; but in that case it would not have been his. His true self would seem to have been most fully displayed in his later works and in his parliamentary career, his account of which has a great deal of quiet vanity in it.

The public have read with avidity the record of another great writer and thinker, whose name stands in natural connexion with that of Mill. The "Personal Life of George Grote" is told by Mrs. Grote in accordance with an intention of which she herself informed her husband in his lifetime. One morning, she tells us, she was arranging some old letters and journals when enter Mr. Grote. "What are you so busy over there, H. ?' inquired he. 'Well, I am arranging some materials for a sketch of your Life, which I have been urgently invited to write by several of our best friends.' 'My Life!' exclaimed Mr. Grote, 'why, there is absolutely nothing to tell.' 'Not in the way of adventures, I grant; but there is something, nevertheless: -your life is the history of a mind.' 'That is it!' he rejoined, with animation. But can you tell it?' 'It is what I intend to try. You see, unless I give some account of your youth and early manhood, no other hand can furnish the least information concerning it.' Nothing can be more certain -you are the only person living who knows anything about me during the first half of my existence.' This short colloquy ended, the subject was never renewed between us; the historian feeling, as I believe, content to leave his life's story in my hands."

Grote had none of the proud confidence with which many authors, predestined to eminence, have fearlessly confronted the judgment of contemporaries, or, like Milton, silently anticipated the verdict of posterity. Early in 1845, when he had got two octavo volumes ready for the press, he said to his wife, “I suppose I shall have to print my history at my own expense; for, you see,

having little or no literary reputation as yet, no bookseller will like to face the risk of it." Protesting that he held himself much too cheap, she proposed that they should begin by inquiring among their learned acquaintances who were the booksellers in repute. The entire arrangements being left to her, she finally resolved on giving the refusal to Mr. Murray, and on her "reporting progress" after an interview with that gentleman, Grote observed, “I only hope the poor man will not be a loser by me, and then I shall be content, come what may."

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The first two volumes were published in March, 1846, and the author is described as unusually agitated and curious as to the result." His agitation was soon over, so far as it arose from apprehension or uncertainty. Compliments and congratulations poured in from all sides, and the general feeling was expressed by Hallam when, drawing Mrs. Grote aside, he said to her, "I have been familiar with the literary world for a very long period, and I can safely say that I never knew a book take so rapid a flight to the highest summits of fame as George's new History of Greece." Mrs. Grote gave all the help she could to her husband's labours. Besides helping to correct the proofs, she was "a diligent and conscientious critic, often suggesting changes, and sometimes excisions, in the text of the work."

"The author usually manifested respect for my remarks, and eventually came to regard my humble assistance as indispensable. I well remember exclaiming to him one day, when going through his account of the 'Weeks and Days,' 'Now, really, George, are you obliged to publish all this absurd and incredible stuff?' " Certainly, my love; an historian is bound to produce the materials upon which he builds, be they never so fantastic, absurd, or incredible.'"

The third and fourth volumes appeared in April, 1847; the fifth and sixth in December, 1848; the seventh and eighth in March, 1850; the ninth and tenth in February, 1852; the eleventh in April, 1853; and the twelfth and concluding one in March, 1856. The last proof of the last sheet was returned to the printer on the 23rd of December, 1855. Mrs. Grote memorialized the finale. "I remember that I had a bowl of punch brewed at Christmas for our little household at 'History Hut,' in celebration of the 'opus magnum ;' Grote himself sipping the delicious mixture with great satisfaction while manifesting little emotion outwardly, though I could detect unmixed signs of inward complacency as I descanted upon the happiness of our living to see this day,' and so forth."

The progress of the work was for a time interrupted by Grote's entrance into political life, as member for the City of London in the first Reformed Parliament. He had previously become conspicuous in the small party then called the Philosophical Radicals, including Sir W. Molesworth, Mr. Roebuck, and Mr. Charles Buller. He took an active part in all the proceedings of the extreme Liberals, and introduced in several sessions Bills for the establishment of Vote by Ballot; but the country was averse to further organic changes; and the progress of natural reaction reduced the handful of ultra-reformers to a powerless condition. It was without regret on his own part, and perhaps without loss to the country, that Mr. Grote retired from Parliament in 1841, to devote the rest of his life to the composition of his History and of his treatises on Greek philosophy. Thirty years later, when his early opinions were adopted by Mr. Gladstone's Government, his enthusiasm for the Ballot

had sensibly cooled. "I confess," he said to Mrs. Grote, "that, since the wide expansion of the voting element, the value of the Ballot has sunk in my estimation."

Although fond of good conversation, and eminently qualified to shine in it, Mr. Grote was with difficulty induced to become a member of the Literary Club, and was never happier than with his books. He contrived to combine

a great amount of literary labour with the discharge of many and important public duties, particularly those which his Vice-Presidency of the University of London and his Trusteeship of the British Museum entailed upon him. When (November, 1869), in addition to every other description of honour that can be won or achieved by learning or literature, a peerage was pressed upon him by the present Premier, his refusal was mainly based on his conscientious reluctance to accept a position requiring more time and attention than he could spare. Yet his life was certainly shortened by his refusal to suspend exertions by which elevated and useful objects might be attained. He died on the 18th of June, 1871, and was buried with national honours in Westminster Abbey.

From Mill and Grote we turn to a very different type of literary man, as portrayed in the "Life, Journals, and Letters of Henry Alford, D.D., late Dean of Canterbury." This, too, is a work of female editorship, but we must confess that Mrs. Alford does not handle her subject well. The book fails of due proportion and organization, and it deals too much in minute and unimportant detail. Not a profound scholar, not an original thinker, not one of those creative geniuses that leave their stamp on the intellectual history of the age, the late Dean of Canterbury was essentially a good man, in the widest and truest meaning of the term. He possessed singular purity, unselfishness, simplicity, singleness of purpose, moral courage, cheerful faith, and active benevolence. Remarkable for the number and high order of his gifts, though in each failing of the very highest; as artist, as musician, as naturalist, as poet, as theologian, he devoted them all to the service of others, whom he was ever ready to assist with his counsel and encourage with his kindly sympathy. Few men were ever more generally and more deservedly loved-none had fewer enemies. His University career was one of considerable distinction. He obtained a Trinity Scholarship and the "Bell," and was classed in 1832 as 34th Wrangler and 8th in the First Class. In 1834 he obtained a Fellowship of Trinity, but soon threw it up to marry his cousin, to whom he had been engaged two years, and take the small college living of Wymeswold, on the borders of Charnwood Forest.

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'This living," writes Dean Merivale, " I was so small, so obscure, so much for a long period neglected, that no Senior Fellow cared to take it, and thereupon he married his wife and busied himself for a period of eighteen years." Here" he carried on his three full services single-handed, built and superintended his schools, almost rebuilt his church, and by his earnestness and evident self-sacrifice won the unbounded love of his parishioners." The restoration of Wymeswold Church, which he found "disguised by decay, filth, and unseemliness," was undertaken by him on his own responsibility; and though he was helped by voluntary contributions, a considerable portion of the whole cost, 35007., came out of his pocket. "All this time," the Dean continues, "he maintained an increasing family by constant tuition, still finding time-for I never saw him throw himself back in his chair and

lounge for one minute-for writing some books and editing others (Donne's works may be specified), for skirmishing in reviews, and lecturing in local centres."

The studies necessary for the annotated edition of the Greek Testament, in connexion with which Alford's name will be chiefly remembered by posterity, and the first volume of which was published in 1849, rendered his provincial isolation inconvenient to him, and in 1852 he accepted the incumbency of Quebec Chapel in London, offered him by the Rev. J. H. Gurney. From this he was promoted by Lord Palmerston, in 1857, to the Deanery of Canterbury. This was a position very congenial to his tastes. While it presented a field for the exercise of his musical knowledge and powers, and his acquaintance with ecclesiastical architecture and sacred art, it also afforded him the leisure he needed for the completion of his great Biblical works, and gave him continual opportunities of exercising his powers as a preacher and an expositor of the Scriptures to large and important congregations. In 1870, the last year of his life, the sixtieth of his age, the Dean undertook two separate enterprises, one being an attempt to popularize the study of the Old Testament, as in his book for " English Readers" he had done for the New. This gigantic task he began with even less previous knowledge of the Hebrew literature than he had of Greek grammar and criticism twenty-seven years before. He intended, no doubt, as then, to learn as he went on, reserving corrections and improvements for subsequent editions. On November 15 he records in his journal, "Finished Exodus xxv. and left off work for the present." That work was never resumed, nor will the portion which has been published since his death add much to his reputation. The second labour of the year could have cost him little trouble, and was full of pleasurable excitement. Immediately after putting forth a Revised Translation of the New Testament (of which 25,000 copies were sold in a few months), it became his duty to advocate in Convocation, and to help in carrying out in person, the Revision of the English Bible now in progress. He had hoped for and looked forward to it all his life long; he took his share in it with undisguised satisfaction. His short notices of the sessions in his journal are full of enthusiasm, though one of his colleagues seems to think that "in general he kept himself in the background, as if he felt that his suggestions were sufficiently before us" already. The truth is, he was ill, complaining of constant headache and sleeplessness, until at length, on the 16th of December, acting on imperative medical advice, he went to the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey in the morning, took leave of the Revision Company, gathered up his books, patiently and quietly went home, and after preaching once more in the Cathedral on New Year's Day, 1871, succumbed to the first effects of an accidental chill, and died on the 12th of January.

Mr. Chandler does duty as editor of the minor writings of the late Dean Mansel, consisting of "Letters, Lectures, and Reviews, including the Phrontisterion, or Oxford in the Nineteenth Century." This last was a witty dramatic fragment, called forth by the proposed changes in the University at the time it was written. The other papers bring vividly before us the characteristics of Mansel as a writer. He had a special faculty for abstract reasoning, but nothing could be more moderate than his estimate of what it could accomplish. The duty of philosophy, he said, is not to transcend consciousness, but to make consciousness at unity with itself; the office of