of a subject on which his knowledge is extremely limited. We feel very much towards his projected enterprise, as the engineer felt who reported on the terrible accident on the South-Western Railway last summer, in which a bullock got in the way of the train. Either the train, he said, if possible, should have been brought to a dead stop, or, if that was not possible, it should have pushed on at full speed. We had rather that Mr. Motley should bring his train to a full stop, and return to his old line. But if that is not to be hoped, we trust that he will push on at full speed. The real history of the Thirty Years' War is one which will probably take the lifetime of men to investigate thoroughly; and it would be a pity if Mr. Motley were to occupy much time in laboriously acquiring knowledge to which he has not as yet found the key. If Mr. Motley can be induced to continue to treat the subject as a mere episode deserving no serious study, he may possiby write a book as full of mistakes as those which we have signalised, and may then, after wasting three or four years of his valuable life, come back to that special work in which he stands alone, and in relation to which even those who venture to criticise him, are aware that they stand in the relation of scholars to a master.-GARDINER, SAMUEL R., 1874, The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, The Academy, vol. 5, p. 194. With all Motley's efforts to be impartial, to which even his sternest critics bear witness, he could not help becoming a partisan to the cause which for him was that of religious liberty and progress, as against the accepted formula of an old ecclesiastical organization. For the quarrel which came near being a civil war, which convulsed the State, and cost Barneveld his head, was on certain points, and more especially on a single point, of religious doctrine.-HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 1878, Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 16, p. 458. Valuable and interesting as the work is, it may be said that if he had shortened Barneveld's life by a half, he might have lengthened his own; for the materials were more intractable than any he had before encountered, the handwriting especially of the great Advocate of Holland being so bad as almost to be undecipherable even by the aid of the microscope. On the last day of the year in which this noble work appeared, Mrs. Motley died. This blow, coming as it did in the midst of bodily illness and mental distress, broke his heart. -WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY, 1886, Recollections of Eminent Men, p. 189. Thorough and conscientious, interesting and valuable as the book is, it is not to be denied that it takes sides with Oldenbarneveld, and that it is written with less freshness and brilliancy than the earlier volumes. JAMESON, JOHN FRANKLIN, 1897, Library of the World's Best Literature, ed. Warner, vol. XVIII, p. 10379. Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom! HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, 1857, A Parting Health to J. L. Motley, Poetical Works, Cambridge Ed., p. 151. His strong and ardent convictions on the subject of his work have also affected its style and literary character; his narrative sometimes lacks proportion and forbearance; he dwells to excess upon events and scenes of a nature to kindle in the mind of the reader the excitement he himself feels, and he studiously witholds from the opposite side the same amount of space and of colouring. His style is always copious, occasionally familiar, sometimes stilted and declamatory, as if he thought he could never say too much to convey the energy of his own impressions. The consequence is, that the perusal of his work is alternately attractive and fatiguing, persuasive and irritating. An accumulation of facts and details, all originating in the same feeling. and directed to the same object, mingles our sympathy with some degree of distrust; and although the cause he defends is beyond all question gained, we are not impressed with the judgment of such an advocate. GUIZOT, FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME, 1857, Philip II. and his Times, Edinburgh Review, vol. 105, p. 45. Whose name belongs to no single country, and to no single age. As a statesman and diplomatist and patriot, he belongs to America; as a scholar, to the world of letters; as a historian, all ages will claim him in the future.-FISH, HAMILTON, 1868, Address Before the New York Historical Society, Dec. 16. He is especially remarkable for a certain breadth of mind which impels him to take comprehensive and exhaustive views of his subject. His style is a model of vigor and grace, and in dramatic quality it is equaled by that of no other historian of this century.-CATHCART, GEORGE R., 1874, ed. The Literary Reader, p. 307. My first interview, more than twenty years ago, with Mr. Lothrop Motley, has left an indelible impression on my memory. It was the 8th of August, 1853. . . . My My eagerness to make the acquaintance of such an associate in my sympathies and my labors may be well imagined. But how shall I picture my surprise, in presently discovering that this unknown and indefatigable fellow-worker has really read, I say read and reread our "Quartos," our "Folios," the enormous volumes of "Bor," of "Van Meteren," besides a multitude of books, of pamphlets, and even of unedited documents. Already he is familiar with the events, the changes of condition, the characteristic details of the life of his and my hero. Not only is he acquainted with my Archives, but it seems as if there was nothing in this voluminous collection of which he was ignorant. . . . The Archives are a specific collection, and my Manual of National History, written in Dutch, hardly gets beyond the limits of my own country. And here is a stranger, become a compatriot in virtue of the warmth of his sympathies, who has accomplished what was not in my power. By the detail and the charm of his narrative, by the matter and form of a work which the universality of the English language and numerous translations were to render cosmopolitan, Mr. Motley, like that other illustrious historian, Prescott, lost to science by too early death, has popularized in both hemispheres the sublime devotion of the Prince of Orange, the exceptional and providential destinies of my country, and the benedictions of the Eternal for all those who trust in Him and tremble only at His word.-VAN PRINSTERER, M. GROEN, 1875, Maurice et Barnevelt, Étude Historique. His histories are, in some degree, epics. As he frequently crosses Prescott's path in his presentation of the ideas, passions, and persons of the sixteenth century, it is curious to note the serenity of Prescott's narrative as contrasted with the swift, chivalric impatience of a wrong which animates almost every page of Motley. Both imaginatively reproduce what they have investigated; both have the eye to see and the reason to discriminate; both substantially agree in their judgment as to events and characters; but Prescott quietly allows his readers, as a jury, to render their verdict on the statement of the facts, while Motley somewhat fiercely pushes forward to anticipate it. Prescott calmly represents; Motley intensely feels. Prescott is on a watch-tower surveying the battle; Motley plunges into the thickest of the fight. In temperament no two historians could be more apart; in judgment they are As both historians are equally identical. incapable of lying, Motley finds it necessary to overload his narrative with details which justify his vehemence, while Prescott can afford to omit them, on account of his reputation for a benign impartiality between the opposing parties. A Roman Catholic disputant would find it hard to fasten a quarrel on Prescott; but with Motley he could easily detect an occasion for a duel to the death. It is to be said that Motley's warmth of feeling never betrays him into intentional injustice to any human being; his histories rest on a basis of facts which no critic has shaken.-WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY, 1876-86, American Literature and Other Papers, ed. Whittier, p. 96. Give evidence of the author's long and careful research, but are faulty in style and spirit. He neither weighs the meaning of his words, nor combines them skillfully. His misrepresentations of Catholics are so obvious that Protestant critics themselves have condemned his "over-zealous partisanship."-JENKINS, O. L., 1876, The Student's Handbook of Literature, p. 498. I should have liked Stanley to have pointed out the thing which strikes me most in Motley, that alone of all men past and present he knit together not only America and England, but that Older England which we left on Frisian shores, and which grew into the United Netherlands. A child of America, the historian of Holland, he made England his adopted country, and in England his body rests.-GREEN, JOHN RICHARD, 1877, Letter, June 4; Letters, ed. Stephen, p. 468. Sleep, Motley, with the great of ancient days, Who wrote for all the years that yet shall be, Sleep with Herodotus, whose name and praise Have reached the isles of earth's remotest sea. Sleep, while, defiant of the slow delays Of Time, thy glorious writings speak for thee And in the answering heart of millions raise But there is a yet deeper key of harmony that has just been struck within the last week. The hand of death has removed from his dwelling place amongst us one of the brightest lights of the Western Hemisphere, the high-spirited patriot, the faithful friend of England's best and purest spirits, the brilliant, the indefatigable historian who told as none before him has told the history of the rise and struggle of the Dutch Republic, almost a part of his own. We sometimes ask what room or place is left in the crowded temple of Europe's fame for one of the Western world to occupy. But a sufficient answer is given in the work which was reserved to be accomplished by him who has just departed. So long as the tale of the greatness of the house of Orange, of the siege of Leyden, of the tragedy of Barneveld, interests mankind, so long will Holland be indissolubly connected with the name of Motley in that union of the ancient culture of Europe with the aspirations of America which was so remarkable in the ardent, laborious, soaring soul that has passed away. He loved that land of his birth with a passionate zeal, he loved the land of his adop tion with a surpassing love.-STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN, 1877, Sermon in Westminster Abbey, June 3. Since the death of Lord Macaulay no contribution, in our tongue, to historic literature, has been at once so original, solid, and popularly attractive as the nine volumes of Mr. Motley; nor has any event been more justly lamented than the premature close of the career of one, at once a student and an artist, whose often fiery zeal was always restrained by a resolute fairness, and who carried into the politics of his own day the quenchless love of liberty with which he animates the scenes and revivifies the actors of the past.NICHOL, JOHN, 1882-85, American Literature, p. 154. Of all the books I have read lately, "Motley's Letters" are the most delightful. He was a perfect letter-writer. His ac count of the great struggle of the Northern States has impressed me intensely.-EASTLAKE, ELIZABETH LADY, 1889, To Sir Henry Layard, Dec. 1; Journals and Correspondence, vol. II, p. 298. Motley had the intense zeal of the born investigator, a rare and heroic quality of which the world takes little note in historians. He had likewise in full possession those qualities which engage the reader. No American has ever written a history more brilliant and dramatic. The subject was a noble one. It was full of picturesque incident, of opportunities for glowing description, of thrilling tales of heroism. But it was not simply these that so engaged Motley's interest that, as he afterwards said, he felt as if he must write upon it. It was a great national conflict for freedom, and as such was profoundly congenial to one who, above all things, loved liberty. The warm heart and enthusiastic, ardent temper of the historian laid him open to dangers of partiality which, it must be confessed, he was far from wholly escaping. The American public little appreciate the extent to which he was influenced by such feelings.-JAMESON, JOHN FRANKLIN, 1891, The History of Historical Writing in America, p. 119. The greatest of the whole of American historians. . . . His "Rise of the Dutch Republic," 1856, and "History of the United Netherlands," published in installments from 1861 to 1868, equaled Bancroft's work in scientific thoroughness and philosophic grasp, and Prescott's in the picturesque brilliancy of the narrative, while it excelled them both in its masterly analysis of great historic characters, reminding the reader, in this particular, of Macaulay's figure painting. - BEERS, HENRY A., 1895, Initial Studies in American Letters, p. 151. Motley's high rank as an historian is secure. As searching as Bancroft, as graphic as Prescott, he outwent them both in comprehension of character, in dramatic quality, and impassioned force. He was too intense a lover of liberty and virtue to be quite impartial. William the Silent was his hero, and Philip II. his villain, but what prejudice he had was always of a noble sort.-BATES, KATHARINE LEE, 1897, American Literature, pp. 245, 246. A born investigator, Motley toiled for years in the libraries and state archives of western Europe, his zest in the pursuit. of truth transforming drudgery into delight. Motley's style, which suggests that of Carlyle, is notably vigorous and brilliant, and certain passages are filled with sarcastic humor. Prescott excelled in the orderly movement of his narrative, but Motley possessed a dramatic instinct which enables him to seize upon some revealing situation and bring it vividly before us. This same dramatic power shows itself also in his delineation of character; certain figures stand out with life-like distinctness, and we can almost imagine ourselves alongside of those men and women of the past in whose company, Motley himself wrote, he was spending all his days.-PANCOAST, HENRY S., 1898, An Introduction to American Literature, p. 233. Motley's historical work is obviously influenced by the vividly picturesque writings of Carlyle. It is clearly influenced, too, by intense sympathy with that liberal spirit which he believed to characterise the people of the Netherlands during their prolonged conflict with Spain. From these In traits result several obvious faults. trying to be vivid, he becomes artificial. In the matter of character, too, his Spaniards are apt to be intensely black, and his Netherlanders ripe for the heavenly rewards to which he sends them as serenely as romantic novelists provide for the earthly happiness of heroes and heroines. Yet, for all his sincerely partisan temper, Motley was so industrious in accumulating material, so untiring in his effort vividly to picture its external aspect, and so heartily in sympathy with his work, that he is almost always interesting. What most deeply stirred him was his belief in the abstract right of man to political liberty; and this he wished to celebrate with epic spirit. Belief and spirit alike were characteristically American; in the history of his own country there was abundant evidence of both.-WENDELL, BARRETT, 1900, A Literary History of America, p. 272. Walter Bagehot 1826-1877 Born, at Langport, Somersetshire, 3 Feb. 1826. At school in Bristol. To Univ. College, London 1842; B. A. and Mathematical Scholarship, 1846; M. A. and gold medal for philosophy and political economy, 1848. In Paris, 1851. Contrib. letters to "The Inquirer," Dec. 1851. Called to Bar, 1852. Edited "National Review" (with R. H. Hutton), 1855-64. Married Miss Wilson, 1858. Editor of "The Economist," 1860-77. Died, at Langport, 24 March 1877. Works: "Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen" (from "National Review"), 1858; "Parliamentary Reform" (from "Nat. Review"), 1859; "The History of the Unreformed Parliament" (from "Nat. Rev."), 1860; "Memoir of the Rt. Hon. J. Wilson" (from "Economist"), 1861; "Count your Enemies," 1862; "The English Constitution" (from Fortnightly Rev."), 1867 (new ed., enlarged, 1872); “A Practical Plan for Assimilating the English and American Money" (from "Economist"), 1869; "Physics and Politics," 1872; "Lombard Street," 1873 (2nd-4th edns., same year); "Some Articles on the Depreciation of Silver" (from "Economist"), 1877. Posthumous: "Literary Studies," ed. by R. H. Hutton (2 vols.), 1879 [1878]; "Economic Studies," ed. by Hutton, 1880; "Biographical Studies," ed. by Hutton 1881; "Essays on Parliamentary Reform," 1883; "The Postulates of English Political Economy," ed. by A. Marshall, 1885. Collected Works: ed. by F. Morgan, with memoir by R. H. Hutton (American ed., 5 vols.), 1889.-SHARP, R. FARQUHARSON, 1897, A Dictionary of English Authors, p. 14. PERSONAL Though himself extremely cool and sceptical about political improvement of every sort, he took abundant interest in more ardent friends. Perhaps it was that they amused him; in return his goodnatured ironies put them wholesomely on their mettle. As has been well said of him, he had a unique power of animation without combat; it was all stimulous and yet no contest; his talk was full of youth, yet had all the wisdom of mature judgment (R. H. Hutton). Those who were least willing to assent to Bagehot's practical maxims in judging current affairs, yet were well aware how much they profited by his Socratic objections, and knew, too, what real acquaintance with men and business, what honest sympathy and friendliness, and what serious judgment and interest all lay under his playful and racy humour.-MORLEY, JOHN, 1882, Valedictory, Studies in Literature, p. 325. Bagehot was one of the best conversers of his day. He was not only vivid, witty, and always apt to strike a light in conversation, but he helped in every real effort to get at the truth, with a unique and rare power, of lucid statement. One of his friends said of him: "I never knew a power of discussion, of co-operative investigation of truth," to approach to his. "It was all stimulus, and yet no contest."-HUTTON, RICHARD HOLT, 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. II, p. 396. The books which I have passed in rapid review form an immense output for a man who died at fifty-one, but I am not sure that the impression of power which was produced by his conversation was not even greater. Perhaps its most remarkable feature was its unexpectedness. However well you knew him you could not foresee how he would express himself on any subject, but when you knew it, you had in the immense majority of cases to admit that which he said was admirably said.-DUFF, SIR MOUNTSTUART GRANT, 1900, The National Review, vol. 34, p. 544. GENERAL It is inevitable, I suppose, that the world should judge of a man chiefly by what it has gained in him, and lost by his death, even though a very little reflection might sometimes show that the special qualities which made him so useful to the world implied others of a yet higher order, in which, to those who knew him well, these more conspicuous characteristics must have been well-nigh emerged. And while of course it has given me great pleasure, as it must have given pleasure to all Bagehot's friends, to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer's evidently genuine tribute to his financial sagacity in the Budget speech, and Lord Granville's eloquent acknowledgments of the value of Bagehot's Political counsels as editor of the Economist, in the speech delivered at the London University on the 9th of May, I have sometimes felt somewhat unreasonably vexed that those who appreciated so well what I might almost call the smallest part of him, appeared to know so little of the essence of him,-of the high-spirited, buoyant, subtle, speculative nature in which the imaginative qualities were even more remarkable than the judgment, and were indeed at the root of all that was strongest in the judgment,-of the gay and dashing humour which was the life of every conversation in which he joined, and of the visionary nature to which the commonest things often seem the most marvellous, and the marvellous things the most intrinsically probable. To those who hear of Bagehot only as an original political economist and a lucid political thinker, a curiously false image of him must be suggested. This, at all events, I am quite sure of, that so far as his judgment was sounder than other men's-and on many subjects it was much sounder-it was not in spite of, but in consequence of, the excursive imagination and vivid humour which are so often accused of betraying otherwise sober minds into dangerous aberrations. In him both. lucidity and caution were directly traceable to the force of his imagination.-HUTTON, RICHARD HOLT, 1877, Walter Bagehot, The Fortnightly Review, vol. 28, pp. 453, 454. In some respects, the intellect of the gifted man whose name furnished the title of the present paper, was typical of the age. It was fearless and independent, accepting only that which came with wellestablished claims upon its credence; it was susceptible, yet capable of giving exact weight to the opinions and ideas which impinged upon its susceptibility; it was dissatisfied with the status quo, both in theology and politics; and, as in the case of all the best minds, it was not utterly |