opinions, on some subjects of great moment, were in a constant process of flux and decomposition; and yet he was impatient of opposition to whatever might be the attitude of his mind for the time being. There was in his thoughts about many things, and in his language with all its glitter, an involution and indistinctness, which made his footing less secure than it seemed, and his guidance less safe. With great appearance of tenacity at any given moment, his mind was apt to be moving indirectly down an inclined plane. It was not his habit to look all round a question, or to take in with equal patience both sides of an argument; when not a partisan, he was generally an antagonist' (ii. 348). The notice concludes: 'The fascination of his conversation and personal character is sufficient to account for the fact, that there are men, well worthy of respect, who follow his guidance with an implicit trust which asks no questions, even beyond the border line which, to minds constituted like my own, appears to separate moral evil from good. I was too long under the master's spell not to have some fellow-feeling with them-for I know how impossible it is not to admire, how very easy to love him' (ii. 360). To a mind so constituted and so equipped as was that of Lord Selborne, the prospect of some years of leisure, purchased by a professional and public life of, perhaps, unexampled toil, must have been a priceless boon. Manifold as were the interests for which, even in the busiest times, he had found room, yet there are many things which must, in the phrase of the great Roman orator, be laid aside for old age; and for these, at the age of 73, with powers of mind and body sound, and sense of enjoyment unimpaired, the time would seem to have come. Yet, if we may borrow from the same source words doubtless familiar to Lord Selborne, it is not well to accept any form of leisure which is inconsistent with dignity.' It was not consistent with dignity, as conceived by the veteran politician, to leave the problem of Irish legislative independence to settle itself, without the protest and without the essential modifications which he, as perhaps no one else, was qualified to contribute. Still less was it consistent with dignity to allow questions of Church Establishment to be the plaything of party exigencies, and of an uninstructed public opinion. His Defence of the Church of England against Disestablishment, written in 1887, and Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes, in 1 1 'Neque enim rerum gerendarum dignitate homines efferri ita convenit, ut otio non prospiciant; neque ullum amplexari otium, quod abhorreat a dignitate' (Cicero, Pro Sestio, xlv.). 1888, were part of the fruits of his leisure. But even more admirable, to friends and opponents alike, was the spectacle of the now aged statesman coming forward on platforms unfamiliar to him, at Birmingham, and in North and South Wales. How greatly these exertions were appreciated we learn from the testimony borne by Sir John Llewelyn to the encouragement given to the work of the Church in Wales, and not only to its defence as an Establishment, by the 'most helpful and inspiriting speech' (ii. 249) at Lampeter. The more natural occupations of a public man's period of retirement were still laborious (ii. 298). Besides the work of Appeals in the House of Lords, for which, to the last, he placed himself at the disposal of the Lord Chancellor, he became High Steward of the University of Oxford; an honorary office, it is true, but the crown of his connexion with a place to which he was 'passionately attached' (ii. 411) and which he had served with all his might. To his own old school of Winchester, where he had been received with fitting honours during his first Chancellorship, and greeted to his own delight, but in sober truth, as Wiccamicorum maxime Wiccamicum,' he gave substantial and unstinted help. In 1875 he succeeded Lord Eversley as Chairman of the Governing Body; and, from that time till his death, his care for the material interests of the College and for the wellbeing of the Society, never failed. His presence gave dignity to the two celebrations of its five-hundredth anniversary held in 1887, and again, with fuller state, and with reference to a different epoch in the foundation, in 1893; and recalled the inspiring verses with which, fifty years before, he had hailed a similar rejoicing. The marriage of Lady Laura Palmer to Dr. Ridding drew the bond closer, and in 1884 the Chairman had the satisfaction of dismissing his son-in-law-with a formal acknowledgment of his services to the school, services by universal consent transcending all acknowledgment-to the newly formed See of Southwell. The Chairmanship of the House of Laymen, by accepting which, in 1886, he inaugurated (ii. 246) 'a movement of much hope and some anxiety,' was not the least, or the least honourable, of the public services rendered in those years. Duties still more easily associated with retirement were performed with absolutely ungrudging readiness, yet at a real sacrifice of time and vital power. To advise, to encourage, to save the falling, and to help those who were down to stand upright, were among the little nameless unremembered acts' of a life the sands of which were running low. He was the unpaid lawyer of the poor, and again and again spent hours of precious time on their behalf. It happened three times in the last two years that he was addressed as " Earl Selborne and Sons," one of which clients began by stating he could not pay, "but troubled the firm, knowing the Earl was honest for a lawyer." This delighted the firm.' His friends, and his father's friends, and his friends' sons were never forgotten; and the letters to members of his own family, especially to those of the children of the second generation, which was growing up, are full of sunshine and charm. His intellectual life burned with a bright and steady flame to the end. His favourite poets-Wordsworth and Horace are especially named-were much with him. How much his own inner life, and even his modes of expression, were founded on Wordsworth, appears in those letters of which the character is most intimate and personal. We see it in his remark upon Lord Tennyson, so easy in application to himself, how 'Wordsworth's wish, that his days should be "bound each to each in natural piety, seemed to be perfectly fulfilled in him," in the spell which he found in certain passages, such as the lines of the Excursion: 'That he broke faith with them whom he had laid In earth's dark chambers with a Christian's hope ;' in his own severe and beautiful version of the Thirty-sixth Psalm, which might almost have been the dirge heard on the hillside by the Poet and the Wanderer. Horace may have charmed him both by contrast and by sympathy; by contrast in his shifting moods of grave and gay, his leisure for dainty trifling, his careful luck' in expression; by identity of nature, in his really true and tender feelings, towards his father, for instance, and his intimate friends, and in his belief in the infinite duty of taking pains. However this may be, it is very pleasant to find an exercise happily begun in youth in the manner of Horatian satire, taken up after thirty-two years, and so finished that it is difficult for the critical nail to discover, in rhythm or spirit, the line which marks the joining. Perhaps the complaint against the 'frustum breve sicci panis et haustus Tristis aquæ,' which furnished the traveller's breakfast, would have come even more fitly from the comfortable bard than from the busy barrister; to whom, if Lincoln's Inn speaks truly, such a banquet was not unfamiliar (ii. 489). A dull novel he would never relinquish till all the characters were disposed of, and 'a clever novel he would devour.' A very happy application of the famous 'bird' in Vivian Grey' (ii. 371), to dispose of a controversialist more inventive than accurate, shows a mind well stored with the shafts of the ' ridiculum.' This side of Lord Selborne is beautifully exemplified in the strong mutual attraction which existed between himself and Lord Tennyson : 'His entire singleness and simplicity always impressed Lord Tennyson; and one day at Aldworth, when reading the "Ode to the Duke of Wellington," to please a friend of ours he stopped after reading the lines "And as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime," and said to us in a lowered voice, pointing to my father, "To that man only in the present time do these lines apply”' (ii. 418). Of Lord Tennyson nothing had been written in these Memorials (beyond letters and passing notices), in deference to the Laureate's well-known distaste for public notice; but the 'Recollections' contributed by Lord Selborne to the 'Memoir' are here reprinted, and are in entire accordance with the anecdote recorded by the editor: 'On October 12, 1892, my father was one of the pall-bearers at Lord Tennyson's funeral. He said to me as we returned home: "He is the man to be envied; with his glorious gift he has done one unbroken service to God and man. Never a word to weaken, never a word to taint; God bless him for his unfaltering teaching from the purest springs of beauty' (ii. 151). We end, as we began, with a hearty expression of thanks to Lady Sophia Palmer for the treasure which she has placed in our hands. The complaint is often justly made that modern biographies are too long, and the number of letters included in them excessive. This can hardly be the case where numerous public events, and the characters of many public men, are treated with authority and care; it is in no sense true, in our judgment, of these volumes. Of the letters -we would specially call attention to the long series addressed to Lord Stanmore (Sir Arthur Gordon)-there is probably none which would have been better omitted. May we add a word in further acknowledgment of the pages added, by way of appendix, in memory of the late Archdeacon of Oxford, Edwin Palmer? The friendship between the elder and the younger brother had been a peculiarly happy one, and it ripened into life-long confidence and love. After we have allowed for some difference in temperament, and for the contrast in the surroundings in which the two lives were passed, there remains much in common to both. The aim of both-plain to all observers-was not to seem but to be--if we may borrow a somewhat old-fashioned word, often employed by Lord Selborne-'excellent.' Looking more closely, we see in each an instance of early lessons and youthful purpose preserved with extraordinary tenacity, in the presence of so much which might alloy, and of agencies potent to wear away ideals; as though travellers, stepping westward in the burning hours of afternoon, were aware of a breeze always attending them which set 'from healthy places.' Great station, and high trusts, and the applause of good men, lend dignity and emphasis to the lesson which such lives teach; they are the seal and assurance of its reality, but they do not make it less universal, or rob it of its power to encourage others. Shadows lengthen, and friends are withdrawn, and the order of which we have ourselves been a living part begins to pass into history; but the last word has not been said, and something remains which change cannot touch 'if, as toward the silent tomb we go Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendant dower, ART. IV. EDWARD THRING OF UPPINGHAM. 1. Edward Thring, Head Master of Uppingham School: Life, Diary, and Letters. By GEORGE R. PARKIN, C.M.G., M.A., Hon. LL.D. University of New Brunswick, Principal of Upper Canada College. In two volumes. (London, 1898.) 2. A Memory of Edward Thring. By JOHN HUNTLEY SKRINE, Warden of Glenalmond. (London, 1889.) IT is intensely refreshing in times like our own, when the general spread of education tends to produce a dead level of uniformity, to meet with some strong outstanding personality who, even at the price of some ruggedness and angularity, stands out distinct and individual among his fellows. We live in a day of much jaded intellectuality: when men seem half afraid of clear and pronounced convictions, and the timid balance of a suspended judgment is mistaken for the acme of wisdom; when the pursuit of truth is deemed by many to be a vain quest, |