e could, the strong feeling

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E. ko January,

L

Caldwell Roscoe,

Lorenzo de Medici h Osler. Both were

ising of a new DebatWalter, and Mr. Koscoe ht them into close contact.

Society to supcrsede the ther, "Roscoe, Hutton, and We have had one meetwhich I was in the chair. ted from attending the meetbonour, which accounts for ni to on Capital Punishments et law personally, but who is BOOP was very reasonable as

the Right Hon. Sir Henry tag was at commemorated on 7th

there was a lack of subjects at first starting, De Morgan just beginning."

A strenuous life of intellectual effort shared together was the bond which commenced the friendship between Walter Bagehot, Richard Hutton, and William Roscoe, but beyond this bond, interests of a character deeper than those purely intellectual were shared by the three friends. Literature was to all three more than a mere intellectual enjoyment. In choice books they found a stimulus which nourished feeling as well as mind. They had early learnt the art of reading the best things in the best way. Also, they had early caught vivid impressions from the aspects of nature, and through intimate companionship with Wordsworth and the poets who discern in nature meanings which arouse a sense of the spiritual life, they had awoken to the twofold joy felt by inter-weaving the delights of the eye with throbbing aspirations of the soul.

After Walter Bagehot's death Mr. Hutton wrote in a letter to my sister-"You remember that sonnet of Wordsworth's Bagehot was so fond of, beginning—

Surprised with joy, impatient as the wind

I turned to share my rapture-oh! with whom?

"It often comes back upon me now when I have something I want to talk to him about, and I remember I shall never hear his step coming up my stairs again."

Beyond this again was a still firmer ground of union. A sense of the reality of the spiritual life was ever present in their lives. The parents of each were Unitarians, with the exception of Mrs. Bagehot. Walter Bagehot was never a Unitarian. Referring to those College days Mr. Hutton writes, "On theology, as on all other subjects, Bagehot was at this time more conservative than myself, he sharing his Mother's orthodoxy, and I, at that time, accepting heartily the Unitarianism of my own people. Theology was, however, I think, the only subject on which, in later life, we, to some degree at least, exchanged places though he never at any time, however doubtful he may have become on some of the cardinal issues of historical Christianity, accepted the Unitarian position." Many of the ideas which Walter Bagehot threshed out