the age of thirty-one he was not yet too old to begin a political career which might possibly have been of the greatest service to the country. At the time of the Home Rule agitation he threw the whole weight of his great authority against that measure. When his early writings were appealed to by the party of disruption he defended himself against the charge of inconsistency, and his attitude helped to save his country from the appalling disaster that threatened it. At length, in 1895, he was returned to Parliament for the University of Dublin at the mature age of fifty-seven. A report was spread that he had not preserved sufficient of his early opinions to provide decent apparel for a representative of the Irish clergy. The report was based more upon what was supposed to be the tendency of his writings than upon any distinct expression of opinion; and when his clerical opponents came to examine the very ample materials afforded by his published works they found it impossible to maintain the charge. Lecky steadfastly refused to make any confession of faith beyond the statement that he had been brought up as a member of the English Church, and had never dissolved the connection. An amiable clergyman vouched that on one occasion he had himself observed the great historian on his way to a church at Bray, just like any other simpleminded Christian, and the subject was allowed to drop. It was not a little amusing, however, to see one of the most enlightened men of the day the chosen representative of the Irish clergy. Some of them never appear to have even heard of him before his candidature was announced, and they had some difficulty in believing that the bland English-speaking gentleman before them was, really, one of their own countrymen. They never seem to have suspected the honour he would confer upon them by consenting to become their representative. No doubt his first election was carried chiefly by the lay vote and by graduates settled in England; and it was not till later that the denser masses of the clergy became dimly conscious that they had found a representative of exceptional distinction and weight. He had then, however, arrived at an age when it was impossible to begin a new career. He, however, spoke on many important measures affecting Ireland, and he found that he could always command the ear of the House; but the time had long gone by when he could hope to acquire a prominent position as a politician. Unfortunately a premature failure of health soon forced him into retirement.

It would be a complete mistake to suppose that Lecky, as a young man, was wholly absorbed in books to the neglect of other sources of enjoyment. Next after books he ranked the pleasure of travelling. As a poet he delighted in natural

beauty, and Naples, beyond any other place, excited his unbounded admiration. He was scarcely less enthusiastic about pictures, and he was never happier than in the galleries and churches of Italy. He went frequently to the theatre when abroad, and delighted in the acting of Ristori, and even in the dancing of Taglioni.

It cannot be said that in early life he was much disposed to society. He kept very much to himself and to a few friends whom he saw pretty often. It was one of his objections to living at home that he could not well avoid being dragged into general society. He was disposed to be shy and nervous, and he looked forward to a dinner-party with some perturbation. A love of society was in his case an acquired taste, and probably at first not very easily acquired. If he had been condemned to endure only the infliction of the commonplace society, which is the usual fate of ordinary people, he might have shrunk more and more into a recluse; but the sudden and extraordinary success of Rationalism saved him from this peril. As author of the book of the season he found the way opened to the best society in London. In the autumn of 1866 he took chambers in Albemarle Street, and was soon afterwards elected to the Athenæum under the special rule that admits men of unusual merit without long years of waiting. He then began to go about a good deal and became acquainted with most people who were worth knowing.

Till his marriage in 1871 he lived a great deal in hotels; a mode of life that would seem to present almost insuperable obstacles to regular study-and it is wonderful that the Rationalism should have been wholly and the Morals chiefly written under such conditions. Even after he took chambers he remained only a few months in each year in London; and was never so well pleased as when he could get back to hotel life.

Among his contemporaries at the University there were many who were much better scholars, and some who had more varied attainments, and a few, perhaps, of more intellectual force; but Lecky alone conveyed the impression of being endowed with the rare spark of genius, which made him seem to stand quite apart from all the others. This distinction does not admit of description, and perhaps it became less marked in later years. In middle life, when he was well advanced in his History, his mere intellectual power surprised those who had known him in youth. Even his appearance underwent a change. The head appeared to have grown broader and more massive. That this is no mere fancy will be seen by comparing the photograph taken by Mrs. Cameron in 1868 with those of later years. Indeed, few men ever varied so much at different periods.

Some of the photographs shown in shop windows are scarcely recognisable to those who saw him only at long intervals. His manner, too, became graver and more collected. He spoke more of the possibilities of life and less of its ideals. He seemed to be endeavouring, somewhat painfully, to train himself down to the level of the practical politician. He became vastly more prosaic. He visited less frequently the countries which had been the nurseries of his early enthusiasms. He became more matter of fact and Teutonic. It seemed as though the friction of London society was slowly affecting his Celtic nature. The spontaneity of genius which, during youth and early manhood, made him an entirely exceptional personality, receded, as it were, behind the growing prominence of purely intellectual ability. His brightness seemed to be shadowed by passing clouds of melancholy, as though he had begun to feel the aimlessness of life and the vanity of endeavour. There can be little doubt that at some periods of his life he suffered from the strain of overwork, He was never strong, and his letters contain many references to times of weakness and ill-health. The completion of his work on Morals was followed by a period of evident exhaustion; and quite late in life it seemed as if attendance in Parliament, combined with his other work, produced an undue nervous tension. But from early manhood his life was governed by an imperious sense of duty. He became deeply conscious of the obligation to develop his many talents to their fullest extent and to use them for the benefit of other people. Under its influence the easy and somewhat dilettante youth became for the first time a real hard worker. He strenuously directed his efforts to definite objects; he restrained his nomadic instincts and settled down in London chambers, which he at first detested. This overmastering sense of duty continued constantly to gain strength, and it may, perhaps, have induced in the end a certain intolerance for those whose aims were less serious than his own, or whose efforts were less sustained. It may have occasioned a certain lack of sympathy for the foibles and failings of weaker mortals. From early college days down to the last he was always charming in conversation, brimful of anecdotes, told without a tinge of malice but with a keen sense of humour. He was always alive to the foolish or ridiculous in character or opinion, and his tongue and pen were easily edged with sarcasm. It must have been the result of no small effort that he kept both so uniformly under restraint. He was essentially a good man, always on the alert to do a kind or charitable action, and, to those whom he honoured with his regard, he was the warmest, the most helpful and inspiring of friends. A COLLEGE FRIEND.

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

AND WAR

AN APPRECIATION

It is always regrettable when a speaker or writer with something worth listening to or reading, mars, by faulty arrangement of his materials, the delivery of the message and the reception of the same. Major Ross, in his really powerful work, Representative Government and War, has undoubtedly fallen into this error. Presumably, the main purpose of the book is to bring home to the adult non-military men of the Empire the difficulties encountered in that struggle for existence, known as war, by nations enjoying in peace time and in war time the comforts and blessings of representative government. The British nation, or rather the present generation of that nation, had not, until three or four years ago, the faintest idea of what a war really meant. It was so used to Indian frontier wars, and to small expeditions, all resulting more or less successfully, that it was near dumfoundered when suddenly the great struggle in South Africa came on its hands, but even now it does not know much about war. As Major Ross says, "The British nation has tasted, to a very small extent only, the bitterness of defeat in the Boer War. How bitter the taste of final defeat and invasion would be, the British nation has no experience of -or if once tasted the taste has been forgotten." That that war did not terminate in utter and overwhelming disaster to the Empire was due mainly to two causes: European Powers did not interfere or pick a quarrel with us during its course, and we had credit sufficiently good to provide the hundreds of millions spent on the war. But now the question is: How about the future? Taking into account the facts that the British nation is, on the one hand, decidedly commercial, and, on the other, nominally, at all events, avowedly Christian, it would have been better if Major Ross had not in the very first chapters of his book propounded in such plain language his views of the

human national struggle for existence to which we are condemned on this globe, and of the somewhat unpleasant methods to which the nation that does not wish to come off secondbest must resort. It would have been more politic, first, to have portrayed the situation; next, to have shown the crooked ways by which the situation may be worked to our disadvantage by our enemies, and then to have left to the readers of the book the solution of the puzzling problem how to hold our own without doing likewise. The book is, however, one that ought to be read by all; and in the following pages will be given briefly an outline of the contents.

As portions of the world become overcrowded, so it would seem must war, pestilence, or famine occur. War is the struggle for existence between races, between nations, between man and man, and between animals. Two nations urgently desirous of the same thing on which existence depends enter into competition with each other. Compromise may follow compromise, but the end will be the same-war. War is the great crisis in the life of a nation, which decides whether the nation shall continue to exist. . . . The destruction of a race of savages by a great nation is not war; it is due to the irresistible impetus of the wave of civilisation, which, momentarily checked by some petty obstacle, yet sweeps onwards. It is play to the great nation; it is effacement to the savage-as it were, a full-grown man tramples down a child in his path. Military operations against savages are wrongly termed war, and give a false impression of the thing. When two nations nearly equal in resources meet in battle, it is war. It is, as it were, two full-grown men engaged in a death struggle.

Such are the opening words.

War is a stern necessity to the human race; and unless a nation can recog nise this fact, it will be unready when the time comes. War is a great crisis in the life of a nation; and when that crisis occurs all thoughts other than that of gaining the victory at all costs must be discarded, or defeat will result. Defeat in a so-called war, an episode of a great struggle for existence, may appear at the time to be a matter of but small concern, and one easily remedied. It is not so, however; defeat is but the stepping-stone to heavier disaster. Thus, the defeat of the British in the Boer War of 1881 was, at the time, considered of but small moment, and not a matter which could in the slightest degree affect the Empire. Yet this reverse to British arms led to the Boer War of 1899, when the most strenuous exertions on the part of the whole Empire were necessary to avert defeat and to save the Empire. A nation, like a man prepared to fight for his life, must keep itself in training, and be in readiness to strip at a moment's notice in order to strike the first decisive blow. Thoughts of war must be paramount in peace-time. All interests must be discarded which are likely to endanger national success in war. . . .

A nation actuated by the highest sentiments of philanthropy, consistently generous and magnanimous to weaker states, with a deep regard for national morality, for a good name, for missionary enterprise and the extension of Christianity, regarding a peaceful and virtuous existence as the noblest of all national ms, must yet live. It must endeavour to gain wealth, if only to ameliorate