"Besides the tie of friendship, which neither time, distance, nor difference of life or occupation affected, I somehow felt a strong personal pride in the distinguished position he had obtained, and I was ever looking forward to what the future might have in store for him. I have constantly felt humiliated that I, content to live a life of mediocrity, was able to step into Parliament without difficulty, while he, by a strange perversity, could not obtain a position for which he was so remarkably adapted, but also where his talents would have been so eminently useful to his country."

Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff wrote:

"It is a great public as well as a private calamity. I do not remember any moment on record in English history when we could so ill spare a man of such high and exceptional ability." After referring to "the production of his mature and exquisite genius "Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff adds: "He has his niche in the Temple of Fame amidst the best and wisest of his age and country".

These are but a few of the tributes tendered by Walter Bagehot's appreciators at the time and after his death.

In worthy fame, there is assuredly a lustrous, abiding glory. A monument it is that earns praise for those who raise it no less than for those to whom it is raised. Though thirty-seven years have passed since that March, 1877, there is still no lack of living witnesses-witnesses who countto testify to Walter Bagehot's genius. To his work and to his wisdom is accorded its reward. The world has pro

nounced.

Some there are, however, to whom this fame which the world can accord, seems but a cold, inanimate memorial when compared to the warmth of feeling treasured by those who loved him as a friend. The exact nature of the talisman which inspired so rare an affection, it is scarcely possible to put into words. Cite all the virtues in the world, you could not carry home to those who did not know him the choice quality of Walter Bagehot's influence over those closest to him. The grace of that day which is gone cannot be passed on. There always must remain, say what we may,

one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no Virtue can digest.

Letters from two life-long friends written at the time of his death may reflect somewhat of the depth of feeling which Walter Bagehot could inspire.

T. Smith Osler wrote:

"One man does not often say he loves another, I can say it of very few, but I can of Walter Bagehot. And besides that, of all the men I have known with anything like intimacy he was the single one of whom I could say with certainty that his individual mark was left upon the thought of his time. His talk when one had him alone-was the purest intellectual pleasure I ever had. He went so straight to the heart of the question-you were so sure of fresh light-and he was so matchless in discussion as contrasted with dispute. The mere love of truth was always sufficient to sustain his animation without any thought of display or victory. The last long tête-à-tête I remember was some six years ago in a walk over Wimbledon Common. But the sense of such talks is a hundred times fresher in my mind than the talk of the scores of ordinary men of whom the world is so full. And I know too his sound, warm heart and sterling integrity from his youth up, and am proud to think that I too may claim in a humble fashion to have been his friend. It is true that I did love Walter besides admiring his genius and holding his character in the highest esteem. I daresay there may not be very many who knew how much warmth there was with all that clear light-how much of the truest tenderness with all that unerring perspicuity of glance and brilliancy of expression. But those who have felt its charm can never forget the impression he made. I have known the touch of his affectionateness more than once in my life—both in joy and in sorrow, and on the intellectual side, I repeat deliberately, that converse with him in the days when we were thrown together and when talk was preceding life, was the highest intellectual pleasure I ever reached. Every remark of his was so clear and pertinent and yet came from such a depth below the surface-the whole bearing and relation of every thought was

so completely and rapidly seized, that you advanced miles with him where another man would only have taken you yards. Nor was that all. The first thing I knew about him when he was not long emerged from boyhood was an act of great moral courage—and he carried his integrity with him to the quiet end. What a comfort it must be to look back upon a peaceful falling asleep without a struggle or a pang-only it came too soon, and when we might have looked for many years of ripened wisdom and beneficent life."

Richard Hutton, who of all his men friends loved him the best, wrote:

"This blow seems almost more than one can bear, my dear Mrs. Bagehot. I don't know why I was so stupidly confident he was getting better. . . . I can hardly see for the heaviness of my head and heart at this crushing blow, though I know I ought to be thinking chiefly of you, and indeed am thinking of you very much, and very, very painfully. It is the snapping of a hundred threads all together I hardly know where I am or what it all means. The world changes so, I don't feel equal to life in it. . . . I must try and write something about him in my own paper,1 which will be a very painful effort. God help me! Did Bagehot tell you that this day week I told him he was looking so young and well, I could hardly believe he was my contemporary at all. I was feeling old and haggard, and I was wonderfully struck by his bright, fresh look. Tell his father from me, how very much he was to me. The dreariness of this day is terrible to meI am afraid I am hardly myself. Yours was a much closer tie, but mine was an older one.-Well, he is in better keeping than ours. God bless you, and help us to bear all we may have to bear."

The next day Mr. Hutton wrote:

"I was sure his death must have been due to a failure of the heart. But it is very little use our trying to find these artificial consolations. The pain is all the same. I shall never see him again here, and I hardly know how to bear it, I am still quite stunned."

1 The Spectator.

Very few of us are now left who picture him thus, more as the intimate friend than as the wise author of books. Happily for some of these few, albeit their sun is nearing the horizon, his home is still their home, the Herd's Hill, so beloved by his parents and by him from his childhood. There it is, ever recalling to memory that vivid life associated with them. There are the walks, the lawns from which his father opened vistas through the branches of the elm trees to "further beauties beyond"; to a sight of that little river Parret-a blue ribbon winding amidst the damp of green moorland meadows;-to the view of the church towers, aged, noble sentinels, rising steadfast amidst a vaporous landscape. There still is the steep pathway, the short cut that Walter would shoot down in all haste to catch his train, a lovely pathway branched over by the big arbutus tree, brilliant in winter with crimson strawberries and white bell-flowers, and by the wide spreading lime-tree, bright yellow-green, and the copper beech, cornelian scarlet in the spring, purple crimson in the summer, their trunks buttressed against a steep bank of primroses and moss; the views over the moors to the Quantock and Mendip Hills; to the mound in the moors marking the place where Alfred the Great burnt the famous cakes. All these things still are there as we wander on those lawns; and round us still hover living associations with those three to whom they were so dear.

Places themselves become monuments through the force of the memories attached to them.

In my spirit will I dwell,

And dream my dream, and hold it true;

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu

I cannot think the thing farewell.

INDEX.

ERRATA FOR INDEX.

Page 469, col. 2, line 2 from foot, for Dickenson, Robin read Dickin-
son, Robert.

,, 1, line 6, for Enquirer read Inquirer.

,, 2, 2, delete Howell, Lord, 160.

2, after Stevenson insert Stowell, Lord, 160.
476, 2, line 3 from foot, for Taylor read Tayler.