chronicle has ever devoted so large a proportion of space to the incidents of conflict and to individual effort and achievement. The result of this unique mixture of fact and fancy, conveyed in a style of extraordinary and sustained animation, has been found, and will continue to be found, highly attractive as the expression of an intellect rare both in its qualities and in the combination of them, and wielding a great and refined literary power.

When, therefore, the family of Lord Raglan invited him to undertake the history of the war, he already possessed a strong and personal interest in the subject, as well as another qualification for the task —namely, an extraordinary ardour for investigating and celebrating all kinds of warlike achievement. His view of his duties was so conscientious, and the pleasure he took in them so incapable of cloying, that they occupied nearly all the remainder of his life. The formidable masses of official papers supplied to him formed probably by no means the chief part of his materials. Upon every incident, all the evidence of the actors in it, or others possessing special information, was brought to bear. All this had to be considered, reconciled, and put in form, with a result that was sometimes happy, sometimes not. The charge of the Heavy Brigade, for example, was an affair of minutes; and when it came to be expanded into seventy pages of the history, the distinctive character of a short cavalry encounter was necessarily lost. On the other hand, the long and confused struggle of Inkerman formed a much more suitable subject for close investigation; and the result was that, for the first time, the phases of that obstinate

VOL. CXLIX.-NO. DCCCCIV.

and desultory conflict were made intelligible.

A whole generation thus not only grew to manhood, but was approaching middle age, while Kinglake was seated amidst the multitudinous materials of his task. And when he had obtained all the testimony possible respecting a particular feature of the campaign, and had at last composed the narrative of it, the piece of work was still far from ended. For then his fastidious taste stepped in, and the polishing of the manuscript was continued with unwearying zeal on the proofs, till finish could go no further. All this time the collection of evidence for future volumes was going on; and perhaps the most singular witnesses who appeared before his judicial chair were Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, each intent on relieving himself of whatever of blame might attach to the famous action of the Light Brigade. Lord Cardigan was especially urgent in his representations, insomuch that Kinglake speaks of "a slight feeling of anger which his persistency gave me.” But if either noble lord imagined that he would be able to sway the mind of the judge he was grievously in error, for Rhadamanthus himself could not have come to conclusions more severely impartial.

His one paper in 'Blackwood' is on the "Life of Madame de Lafayette," which appeared in September 1872. Of the Reign of Terror it takes, as was to be expected, a new and unconventional view. The establishment of that horrible domination is ascribed to the supineness of those who should have made head against its leaders. Everywhere," says Kinglake, "submission, submission, submis

U

sion, more than corresponding to the triple audacity of Danton." Speaking of the rule by guillotine, the writer asks, "What is the meaning of all this? Were people all madly wicked? Not at all. Only a few were wicked; the rest were cowed. . . . That fatal guilt which had been the cause of so much evil in France is the guilt of Resignation." In view of the indulgence accorded, with such shameful apathy, to mischief, of various kinds, to the commonwealth, which is crippling us as a nation, the matter of the paper is well worth pondering, being far more applicable now than when it was written.

Kinglake's later years were passed in that complete repose which wise men have in all times been supposed to covet. They will offer but scant material to a biographer. His walk in the Park, his dinner and evening at the Athenæum, .were the chief of his recreations. Much of his time at the club was passed in a singular companionship. Mr Hayward was never satisfied to dine alone-he liked to have one or two friends to rely on, and then to add such others as might fall in his way, and whom he might consider eligible for the purpose, it being indispensable that they should be persons of some note. A minister, Forster for example; an ambassador on furlough, as Sir Henry Bulwer; a traveller like Oliphant: such were invited (if a bidding so peremptory could be called an invitation) to be of Hayward's party. It was in vain to attempt an excuse, such as to say you were engaged to somebody else, Hayward, like Justice Shallow, would reply, "There is no excuse shall serve-you shall not be excused." People who had once assisted at

these entertainments were sometimes a little shy of coming again, for an absolutism prevailed there, not a republic; the autocrat Hayward seldom brooked contradiction-he was always positive, not to say contentious and for a guest to maintain his own opinions frequently led to war. But however little inclined to venerate others, the irascible sage had an extraordinary and invincible esteem for Kinglake, who, without the slightest apparent attempt to assert himself, received such a degree of deference as, coming from so peremptory a personage, and being so spontaneous, had something touching in it. Moreover, this regard was of an active kind, and Hayward became in case of need his friend's champion, -formidable both for the ardour with which he would enter on a contest, and the logical power with which he would maintain it, for his faculties were always ready to act with the precision and snap of a well-oiled machine. Both of them had large acquaintance with life and men, copious hoards of recollection, quotation, and anecdote, and remarkable powers of memory. A trio was frequently made up by Mr, now Sir Edward, Bunbury, who, with a wider and deeper knowledge than either, had also a surprising memory to render its stores at once available. Mr Chenery was also welcome as bringing a deep learning, as well as the new and important contributions to discussion which the editor of the Times' must command. The alliance continued to prosper up to the time of Hayward's last illness. Kinglake was warm and assiduous to the end in his companionship, which was the consolation that most of all brightened the latter

days of his old friend. After that he still continued to come to the club, and was as good company as ever. Deafness, to which he had long been subject, increased upon him, however, and an eminent frequenter of the Athenæum once observed to the present writer: "I always know when you are dining with Kinglake, for everybody hears everything that you say-except Kinglake!" There was much humorous exaggeration, however, in this: he could hear a companion quite well, and maintained a conversation without difficulty, and always with pleasure to the hearer. He was as precise in memory, as epigrammatic in remark as ever, and his observations continued to be no less quaint and uncommon than those we had long recognised as peculiar to him. The present writer, sitting at table with him one evening when one who long ago was a leading advocate of an important policy entered the room, observed, I suppose, Kinglake, you knew Mr when you were in the House?" "Yes, yes, I knew him-a clever man till he destroyed his intellect." "Good heavens! how? surely not We were about to venture on a wild surmise, when he continued "Destroyed his intellect by reading the newspapers." No explanation was vouchsafed of this oracular deliverance; but in these days, when so many derive not only their information but their opinions from an indiscriminate flooding of their minds with light from the press, it may not be deemed unsuggestive.

About his eightieth year he ceased altogether to come to the club, and near the same time he changed his domicile. He had for twenty years inhabited the same rooms, and it was charac

teristic of him that throughout that period he took this longestablished home by the week. He was to be found there in а small double drawing-room the scene of his labours the front windows bearing on Hyde Park, those at the back looking into St George's buryingground, a prospect not the more cheerful for being quite close. When he moved it was farther west, to larger and airier chambers, still looking on the Park. He was now well taken care of, having placed himself in charge of a professional nurse, a lady in whom he was so lucky as to find a companion at once helpful and agreeable. He continued to spend much time in reading, but he probably did not get through many books, for he dealt with the ideas of others as with his own, long brooding over and revolving them. Even novels he treated in this way, and of these he had (for which he is to be highly commended) an unappeasable appetite for Mrs Oliphant's. We knew no surer path to his favour than to place in his hand in the drawing-room a new production of that prolific authoress. He was quite miserly in his jealousy of this treasure; and in discussing her merits, as he was always ready to do, it would presently appear that, though Scott, and Dickens, and Thackeray, and Bulwer were all very well, the novelist par excellence was Mrs Oliphant. Only there was path illuminated by her genius he would never enter on. don't like the supernatural," he would say; and hence that extraordinary inspiration, "A Beleaguered City," and her powerful ghost stories, remained unknown to him. A book which was full

one

"I

of interest for him, rousing once more all his ready ardour for the military fame of the country, was Lord Stanhope's Conversations with Wellington.' He would take one of the Duke's opinions as a text, to be cogitated on, viewed in every light, and all possible meanings extracted from it, which sermonising process caused the book to occupy him for an extraordinary length of time. His last year was clouded by a terrible shadow of approaching torment, from which the only hope left to his friends was that a painless death might deliver him; and this sad desire was realised.

Mr Kinglake, short and slight of frame, preserved to the last a neat and always well-dressed figure. His features were very

neatly cut; their calm expression did not often change. Friends might have known him long without seeing him use one hurried gesture or hearing him utter a loud or hasty word. Below this imperturbably placid demeanour were incessantly at work the combative tendencies which lead to strong opinions, the refining processes of an intellect at once very unresting and very acute, and that fire of the spirit which lends animation to the expression of thought. He will be remembered, as he was always spoken of, with an affectionateness undiminished by any suggestion of abatement; for the effect of that remarkable personality was not only interesting and original, but singularly engaging.

"Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk, was born at Framlingham in 1810. Of Aldeburgh ancestry, he was the second son of the Rev. John Hindes Groome, exfellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and rector for twenty-six years of Earl Soham and Monk Soham in Suffolk. From Norwich school he passed to Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1832, M.A. in 1836. In 1833 he was ordained to the Suffolk curacy of Tannington-with-Brundish; in 1835 travelled through Germany as tutor to Rafael Mendizabal, the son of the Spanish ambassador; in 1839 became curate of Corfe Castle, Dorsetshire, of which little borough he was elected mayor; and in 1845 succeeded his

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PARSON.

father as rector of Monk Soham. Here in the course of forty-four years he built the rectory-house and school, restored the fine old church, erected an organ, and re-hung the bells. He was Archdeacon of Suffolk from 1869 till 1887, when failing eyesight forced him to resign, and when the clergy of the diocese presented him with his portrait. He died at Monk Soham, 19th March 1889. Archdeacon Groome was a man of wide culturea man, too, of many friends. Chief among these were Edward FitzGerald, William Bodham Donne, Dr Thompson of Trinity, and Henry Bradshaw, the Cambridge librarian, who said of him, 'I never see Groome but what I learn something new.' He read much, but published littlea couple of charges, a sermon and lecture or two, some hymns and hymn-tunes, and a good many articles in the 'Christian Advocate and Review,' of which he was editor from 1861 to 1866. His best productions are his Suffolk stories: for humour and tenderness these come near to 'Rab and his Friends."

An uneventful life, like that of most country clergymen. But as Gainsborough and Constable took

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