"9 SPRING GARDENS, "MY DEAREST FATHER, I mean "I have been considering carefully the question which we almost decided upon when I was at home. my abandoning the law at the present crisis-and in accordance with what we very nearly resolved upon when I was with you, I have decided to do so at this juncture-utterly and for ever." CHAPTER VIII. AUTHOR AND BANKER. BAGEHOT ate his dinners, was called to the Bar, promptly abandoned law as a profession, and settled at Herd's Hill to learn business with his father. As he writes to his father, his mother had "long been inclining to my giving up the law". When writing to him, she had urged health as a reason; but, reading between the lines, he knew that she longed for his presence at home. Also he was becoming more and more conscious of the fertile crop of ideas germinating in his brain, and of the impulse he felt, ever growing stronger, to express them in writing. He had acquired a footing on the ladder of authorship with the articles on Currency and on John Stuart Mill, published in the Prospective Review; he had sprung boldly ahead in the letters on the Coup d'État, escaping once and for all from what was expected of him in Unitarian circles, and he was more than ever aware on returning to London from Paris, that the practice of law was incompatible with literature, though he never for a moment thought of making literature his avowed profession. He was still much interested in University College and the University Hall, and the influence of college life on the future career of students. This inspired him to write an article on Oxford which was published in 1852 in the August number of the Prospective Review.1 He had great doubts as to the merit of this article. After the article appeared he wrote: "I think that my article on Oxford has got off extremely 1 When editing the republished essays by Bagehot, Mr. Hutton omitted a considerable portion of the "Oxford"; but in the forthcoming complete edition of Bagehot's works, the whole of the essay will be found as originally printed. well. I should very much like to write for you an article on Hartley Coleridge, a review of the edition of his Biographia Borealis recently brought out. I am rather strong on him myself, as I was an admirer before his death and renovation. I am rather afraid his 'poems' were reviewed in the Prospective not very long ago, and I don't know whether you would think it desirable to have any second article on him or them so soon, but if you could strain a point for us, I should like to write it very much indeed. It would not be a long article-about thirty pages. I should make it an estimate of him as a whole-though including of course a criticism on his poetry and elucidating him by his father." Though doubt might exist in Bagehot's own mind and in Mr. Hutton's as to the merit of the essay on Oxford, there could be none as to that on Hartley Coleridge. If a selection were made to prove the truth of Mr. Augustine Birrell's assertion that Bagehot was a writer who could be known by his writings, this estimate of Hartley Coleridge would surely take a foremost place. Mr. Hutton writes in the memoir : "In the essay on 'Hartley Coleridge'-perhaps the most perfect in style of any of his writings-he describes most powerfully, and evidently in great measure from his own experience, the mysterious confusion between appearances and realities. which so bewildered little Hartley". He wrote this essay quickly while engrossed in the charm of his subject and insisted on it being published at once. It appeared in the October number of the Prospective Review. It proves that the space of life which Keats believes to exist between the healthy imagination of the boy and the mature and healthy imagination of the man had now been traversed, and that Bagehot's matured individuality as an author had asserted itself. He had not only found himself but knew that he had found himself. In describing the kind of poetry which he names as the selfdelineative, he writes: "The first requisite of this poetry is truth. It is, in Plato's phrase, the soul itself by itself' aspiring to view and take account of the particular notes and marks that distinguish it from all other souls. The sense of reality is necessary to excellence; the poet being himself, speaks like one who has authority; he knows and must not deceive." Walter Bagehot in those lines has stated his creeda creed which dominated all his beliefs, guided his perception, and controlled his action. The soul "itself by itself" must allow of no delusions, no prejudices, no fond fancies which thwart the true direct line of sight. He saw the necessity of this all the more distinctly in his own case, because he perceived the force of his imagination. Walter Bagehot is not only great as an essayist—he may truly be said to stand alone. Though he deals with grave problems and high conceptions, yet the way these are treated by him is so natural and easy, that, however wise, his writing is never ponderous. We are stimulated rather than overweighted by their serious worth. Moreover, he plays with his acquired and wide knowledge with the same vitality with which he plays with his own original ideas -with the same humour, the same buoyancy of spirit. "Hartley Coleridge," he writes, "was not like the Duke of Wellington. Children are urged by the example of the great statesman and warrior just departed-not indeed to neglect 'their book' as he did-but to be industrious and thrifty; 'always to perform business,' to 'beware of procrastination,' 'never to fail to do their best': good ideas, as may be ascertained by referring to the masterly despatches on the Mahratta transactions. 'Great events,' as the preacher continues, 'which exemplify the efficacy of diligence even in regions where the very advent of our religion is as yet but partially made known.' But What a wilderness were this sad world If man were always man and never child! And it were almost a worse wilderness if there were not some to relieve the dull monotony of activity, who are children through life, who act on wayward impulse, and whose will has never come, who toil not and who spin not, who always have 'fair Eden's simpleness': and of such was Hartley Coleridge. Don't you remember,' writes Gray to Horace Walpole, 'when Lord B. and Sir H. C. and Viscount D., who are now great statesmen, were little dirty boys playing at cricket? For my part I do not feel one bit older or wiser now than I did then.' For as some apply their minds to what is next them, and labour ever and attain to governing the Tower, and entering the Trinity House,-to commanding armies, and applauding pilots,-so there are also some who are ever anxious to-day about what ought only to be considered to-morrow; who never get on; whom the earth neglects, and whom tradesmen little esteem; who are where they were; who cause grief and are loved; that are at once a by-word and a blessing; who do not live in life, and it seems will not die in death: and of such was Hartley Coleridge." Once expressed, such ideas as these are obvious, yet how out of the way! What mind disciplined in the creed of getting on in life would say that there was ever dull monotony in activity, and yet how obvious it is that nearly every active business entails dull monotony. Walter Bagehot's energies were never entirely engrossed by the stream of active currents. Some, and those among the choicest, were kept for retiring into the calm, back water in which the finer spirit could bathe itself, where life was reflected half as a dream—only. Here, however, he could not abide for long. The home tragedy was ever there to thrust him out into practical activity, the "dull drudgery" that, once chosen as his work in life, meant duty and filled the hours with something to be done. At the Bank or at The Bridge no speculations on the mysteries and puzzles of life could invade and take possession, no leaps or flights of imagination could interfere with business. But in his study at Herd's Hill, overlooking green lawns and widespread vaporous moorlands, away to distant blue ranges of hills, very different conditions of being were created. The bigger meaning of things would then creep out sideways from the main theme of his articles, and he felt inspired to play with his subject,-play various tunes of his very own. There is a distinct characteristic in Walter Bagehot's writings which is very obvious in the "Hartley Coleridge". To those who knew him intimately his writing is what he has called certain kinds of poetry, self-delineative. No writing could be less self-conscious, none more self-delineative. With intuitive spring of mind and imagination he was seized by ideas in |