the name of Chambers will ever be mentioned in the future without a sentiment of gratitude.'

Robert Chambers (1802-71), after an education at the local Peebles schools, began business as a bookseller in Edinburgh in 1818, but found time for extensive study and a great deal of miscellaneous writing. In 1824 he produced the Traditions of Edinburgh, a work in which Sir Walter Scott took a lively interest, assisting its young author with valuable memoranda; and between 1822 and 1834 he had written some twenty-five volumes. The success of the Journal was materially promoted by his essays, his wide and varied interests, and his literary insight. In 1844 he published anonymously the Vestiges of Creation, a then revolutionary and startling work, which holds an important place in the history of evolution between Lamarck and Darwin; it prepared the way for the Origin of Species, and for fifteen years stimulated speculation in Britain and bore the brunt of orthodox criticism. The authorship, ascribed to him in the Athenæum of 2nd December 1854, was first announced in Mr Ireland's introduction to the twelfth edition (1884). In the Historical Introduction' prefixed to the later editions of the Origin of Species, Darwin says of the Vestiges: "The work, from its powerful and brilliant style, though displaying in the earlier editions little accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific caution, immediately had a very wide circulation. In my opinion it has done excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views.' By his Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1847) he gave an impulse to the study of Scottish folklore. His History of the Rebellions in Scotland, praised by Scott in his Journal as a clever book and a really lively work, and the Domestic Annals of Scotland (3 vols. 1859-61) were serious contributions to history, as his Ancient Sea Margins (1848) was to the geology of Scotland. His Life of Smollett (1867) had the good fortune to please Carlyle greatly, and to be pronounced by him 'vastly superior to anything that had ever been written about him before.' In 1829 he published a collection of Scottish Ballads and Songs; and he wrote a startling dissertation on Scottish ballads which suggested that very many of them were of as recent origin as Lady Elizabeth Wardlaw's Hardyknute (see Vol. II. p. 312). He made further a collection of the Songs of Scotland prior to Burns (1862); The Life and Works of Robert Burns (4 vols. 1851; new ed. by W. Wallace, 1896) became practically the standard work on the subject, the poems and letters being arranged throughout the Life in approximately chronological order; and among his works were also a Life of James I., a Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, and The Book of Days (2 vols. 1863)—his last undertaking. He spent his last years in St Andrews, whose university had made him LL.D.

Out of a brief History of the English Language and Literature for senior pupils in schools, written by Dr Chambers in 1835, sprang the idea of this Cyclopædia of English Literature, which, as has been said in the preface in the first volume of this edition, was planned by Dr Chambers in 1841, carried through mainly with the assistance of Dr Carruthers who was specially charged with the poets and published in parts between the end of 1842 and the later months of 1843 (complete in two volumes in 1844). It was the first work of the kind on such a comprehensive plan. His essays contributed to the Journal (some of which were republished in volumes) probably endeared Dr Robert Chambers to a larger circle of readers than his separately published works, many of which are not here enumerated. Dr Chambers was not merely a conscientious, sympathetic, and versatile writer, but had an exceptional gift of popularity in the best sense of the word, to which a large measure of kindly and spontaneous native humour greatly contributed.

From The English Girl.'

Her favourite seat is under a laburnum, which seems to be showering a new birth of beauty upon her head. There she sits in the quiet of nature, thinking thoughts as beautiful as flowers, with feelings as gentle as the gales which fan them. She knows no evil, and therefore she does none. Untouched by earthly experiences, she is perfectly happy-and the happy are good. Affection remains in her as a treasure, hereafter to be brought into full use. As yet she only spends a small share of the interest of her heart's wealth upon the objects around her; the principal will, on some future and timely day, be given to one worthy, I hope, to possess a thing so valuable. Meanwhile, she loves as a daughter and a sister may do. Every morning and evening she comes to her parents with her pure and unharming kiss; nor, when some cheerful brother returns from college or from counting-house to enliven home for a brief space, is the same salutation wanting to assure him of the continuance of her most sweet regards. Often, too, she is found intertwining her loveliness with that of her sisters— arm clasping waist, and neck crossing neck, and bosom pressed to bosom-till all seems one inextricable knot of beauty. No jealousy, no guile, no envy-no more than what possesses a bunch of lilies growing from the same stem. She has some spare fondness, moreover, for a variety of pets in the lower orders of creation. There are chickens which will leave the richest morsels at the sound of her voice, and little dogs which will give up yelping, even at the most provoking antagonists, if she only desires them. Her chief favourite, however, is a lamb, which follows her wherever she goes, a heaven-sent emblem of herself. To see her fondling this spotless creature on the green-innocence reposing upon innocence-you might suppose the golden age had returned, and that there was to be no more wickedness seen on earth.

From The Man who Sang when Asked.' Our friend was what is called a good but not a brilliant or perfect singer. He had a stout gentlemanly voice, calculated to be of great service as a bass in a trio

Neverthe

or duet, but not by any means a fine voice. less he sang with so much spirit and appropriate expression that in general his performances were much admired, not to speak of the additional approbation which he always secured by his being so willing to contribute to the amusement of the company. Smith had just one fault, as far as singing was concerned. When once he was set agoing there was no getting him to stop. When one of his songs was done, it would perhaps become the subject of conversation. 'Capital song that-first-rate old fellow Dibdin.' 'Yes, sir: but did you ever hear his "Tom Bowling"?—that is better still.' And then, without further preface, he would commence

'Here a sheer hulk '—

and so forth; after which another could be tacked as slightly on to that, and another to that again, till you could almost echo his words, and wish that 'death had brought him to.' Smith estimated the pleasantness of a party, the hospitality of the landlord and landlady, and the worldly worth and amiability of the whole company by the number of songs he was asked or permitted to sing. A deuced nice affair we had last night at Atherton's. I sang two-and-twenty of my very best. Though I would have got in the twentythird; but an old jade in a pink cap broke us up at only twenty-five minutes past twelve, just as I was about to begin.' It was told of Smith that he once stuck a song for want of the words (a most astonishing occurrence), and was so overwhelmed with shame on the occasion as to leave the room abruptly and walk away home. He had gone more than a mile on his way when he suddenly recollected the missing stanza. Back he turned, crying with the transport of Archimedes himself, 'I have it, I have it.' Re-entering the room, he found the company just on their feet to depart. 'Stop, stop,' he cried, in the tone of a man arresting an execution with a reprieve; stop, here it is!' And though almost breathless, he immediately resumed the song at the exact point where he had left off, with all the proper gesticulation and expression, as if no hiatus had taken place.

See the above-mentioned Memoir of William and Robert Chambers (1872; 13th ed., with supplementary chapter, 1884).

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was the eldest son of the mycologist and Dante student, Charles Lyell (1767-1849) of Kinnordy in Forfarshire; and, brought up in the New Forest and educated at Ringwood, Salisbury, and Midhurst, he was in 1816 sent to Exeter College, Oxford. At Oxford in 1819 he attended the lectures of Buckland, and acquired a taste for the science he afterwards did so much to promote. Having taken his degree in 1819, he studied law and was called to the Bar; but devoting himself to geology, made European tours in 1824 and 1828-30, and published the results in the Transactions of the Geological Society and elsewhere. His Principles of Geology (1830-33) may be ranked next after Darwin's Origin of Species among the books which exercised the most powerful influence on scientific thought in the nineteenth century; strenuously denying the necessity of stupendous convulsions, and insisting that the greatest geological changes might have been produced by forces still at work. The Elements of Geology (1838) continued the same

argument. It was subsequently divided into two works, The Principles (12th ed. 1876) and The Elements of Geology; and a great part of Lyell's life-work consisted in supplementing and supporting by evidence his main thesis, and so maintaining and developing the contentions of his predecessors Hutton and Playfair. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863) startled the public by its unbiassed attitude towards Darwin, at this time still regarded as a revolutionary and a heretic. Lyell also published Travels in North America (1845) and A Second Visit to the United States (1849). In 1832-33 he was Professor of Geology at King's College, London. Repeatedly President of the Geological Society, and in 1864 President of the British Association, he was knighted in 1848, and created a baronet in 1864. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. A heroic example of Lyell's open-mindedness was given, as Sir Joseph Hooker said, by his frank acceptance of Darwin's doctrine of natural selection, after nine editions of his own Principles had carried his name and fame over the civilised world. He had done much to prepare the way for Darwin, but had till the production of the Origin of Species maintained a doctrine of special creations. He now abandoned, 'late in life, a theory which he had for forty years regarded as one of the foundation-stones of a work that had given him the highest position attainable among contemporary scientific writers.' The eminent men whose memorial secured for Lyell a place in Westminster Abbey were agreed that for twenty-five years he was the most prominent geologist in the world, equally eminent for the extent of his labours and the breadth of his philosophical views; and he possessed the gift, often denied to great scientific thinkers, of a luminous, effective, and simple style.

Lyell and Darwin.

MY DEAR SIR,-I have to thank you for your kindness in sending me a copy of your important work on the History of Creation, and especially for the chapter entitled 'On Lyell and Darwin.' Most of the zoologists forget that anything was written between the time of Lamarck and the publication of our friend's Origin of Species.

causes

I am therefore obliged to you for pointing out how clearly I advocated a law of continuity even in the organic world, so far as possible without adopting Lamarck's theory of transmutation. I believe that mine was the first work (published in January 1832) in which any attempt had been made to prove that while the now in action continue to produce unceasing variations in the climate and physical geography of the globe, and endless migration of species, there must be a perpetual dying out of animals and plants, not suddenly and by whole groups at once, but one after another. I contended that this succession of species was now going on, and always had been; that there was a constant struggle for existence, as De Candolle had pointed out, and that in the battle for life some were always increasing their numbers at the expense of others, some advancing, others becoming exterminated.

But while I taught that as often as certain forms of animals and plants disappeared, for reasons quite intelligible to us, others took their place by virtue of a causation which was beyond our comprehension, it remained for Darwin to accumulate proof that there is no break between the incoming and the outgoing species; that they are the work of evolution, and not of special creation.

It was natural, as you remark, that Cuvier's doctrine of sudden revolutions in the animate and the inanimate world should lead not only to the doctrine of catastrophes, such as Elie de Beaumont's sudden formation of mountain chains, but to a similar creed in regard to the organic world. A. D'Orbigny gave us twenty-seven stages or groups of living beings, all the species in each of which were so distinct that none of them passed from one to the other stage. Agassiz still inclined to the same notion, the sudden annihilation of one set of inhabitants of the globe, and the coming upon the stage in the next geological period of a perfectly distinct set. I had certainly prepared the way in this country, in six editions of my work before the Vestiges of Creation appeared in 1842, for the reception of Darwin's gradual and insensible evolution of species, and I am very glad that you noticed this, and also the influence of Cuvier's work, which in an English dress, translated by Professor Jamieson, went through almost as many editions in this country as in France, and exercised great authority long after my Principles began to be popular.

(From a letter to Haeckel in 1868.)

Mansel on the Limits of Religious Thought. Have you looked at Mansel's 'Bampton Lectures' on the Limits of Religious Thought'? There were many fruitless discussions among the dons of Oxford how to force the young men by various pains and penalties to attend the University church, which was nearly empty, but there were no precedents for such proceedings. At last some original thinker suggested that possibly if they named some good preacher it might remedy the evil. So they made inquiries for some young men of ability, and found this Mansel, who forthwith filled St Mary's to overflowing, and when the lectures were printed they soon reached a second edition. A friend of mine, Huxley, who will soon take rank as one of the first naturalists we have ever produced, begged me to read these sermons as first rate, although, regarding the author as a Churchman, you will probably compare him, as I did, to the drunken fellow in Hogarth's "Contested Election," who is sawing through the signpost of the other party's public-house, forgetting that he is sitting at the outer end of it. But read them as a piece of clear and unanswerable reasoning.' Soon after I had seen them, I was recommended by Sir Edward Ryan to read a powerful article in the last National, in answer to Mansel, by Martineau; and certainly it is worth reading, and shows among other things, in an episode devoted to Butler's Analogy, how much more comfortable and consolatory is the system of creation, or the divine dispensation, when viewed from a Unitarian than from an orthodox point of view. At length, after expending much admiration and adulation on their new defender of the faith, the Oxonians have become alarmed, and Milman told me that one of them had written to Hampden, 'You are avenged;' while Dr Jeune had exclaimed, 'To think that I should have lived to hear

Atheism preached from the University pulpit, and the member for Oxford recommend the worship of Jupiter!' You will understand, I dare say, the last hit better than me, for I have not read Gladstone's Homeric lucubrations. (From a letter to George Ticknor.)

See Lyell's Life, Letters, and Journals (1881), and Professor Bonney's Charles Lyell and Geology (1895).

Sir Richard Owen (1804-92) came from Lancaster to study medicine at Edinburgh, and continued his professional preparation at St Bartholomew's; became curator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, where he produced a marvellous series of descriptive catalogues; and lectured as Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Bartholomew's (for two years) and at the College of Surgeons. Meanwhile he helped to give new life to the Zoological Society of London. In 1856 he became superintendent of the natural history department of the British Museum, but continued to teach at the Royal Institution and elsewhere. F.R.S., President of the British Association (1857), Associate of the French Institute, C.B., K.C.B. (1883), and holder of scientific medals, degrees, and honorary titles from many nations, he gained the immortality of a true worker; his anatomical and palæontological researches number nearly four hundred, and deal with almost every class of animals from sponge to man. He greatly advanced morphological inquiry by his clear distinction between analogy and homology, and by his concrete studies on the nature of limbs, on the composition of the skull, and on other problems of vertebrate morphology; while his essay on Parthenogenesis was a pioneer work. A pre-Darwinian, he maintained a cautious attitude to detailed evolutionist theories. There is a Life of him by his grandson (1894).

Earl Russell (1792-1878), better known to the English people as Lord John Russell, was a younger son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, and gained distinction after his entrance into the House of Commons as the champion of parliamentary reform in 1819. As a member of Earl Grey's Government he moved the introduction of the first Reform Bill in 1831, and was thenceforth one of the leaders of the Liberal party, holding the office of Prime Minister in two administrations, and being raised to the House of Lords in 1865. He dabbled for a while in the belles-lettres, producing a tale entitled The Nun of Arrouca, a tragedy on Don Carlos, and a translation of part of the Odyssey; but most of his works were more in the statesman's way. The list of them includes a Life of William Russell (1819); an Essay on the English Constitution (1821); Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe (1824); The Life and Times of Fox (1859–67); editions of the memoirs and letters of Tom Moore the poet, and of the correspondence of the fourth Duke of Bedford; and a volume of Recollections and Suggestions, published in 1875 after his retirement from public life. From the last of these we give the extract which follows:

A Scene in Parliament in 1831. Upon this event [the defeat of the first Reform Bill] it became the duty of Lord Grey and his colleagues to consider seriously their position. They had brought forward a great measure affecting the constitution of the country and the course of legislation for generations to come. They could neither tamely abandon their situation nor allow their measure to be frittered away, and rest contented with the fragment of a plan, the whole of which had been enthusiastically accepted by the country. It was manifest that the existing House of Commons would endeavour to destroy in detail that which they had sanctioned in the bulk. It was evident that the country was ready to follow Lord Grey, and to adopt his measure as a satisfactory settlement of a question which, since 1780, had always been in the minds of Liberal politicians, and which was now rooted in the heart of the people.

Lord Grey therefore prepared the King for the decision to which the Cabinet arrived, to advise His Majesty to have recourse to an immediate dissolution of Parliament. The King, though averse to the adoption of such a proceeding little more than six months after the general election, was disposed at this time to trust im plicitly to Lord Grey, and I am inclined to believe the popular story that when it suddenly appeared necessary, in order to prevent remonstrance from the House of Lords, that the King should appear in person to dissolve Parliament, and some trifling difficulty of plaiting the horses' manes in time was interposed as an objection, the King said at once, 'Then I'll go down to Parliament in a hackney-coach.' Had such been the spirit of Louis XVI. he might have been the leader instead of the victim of the French Revolution.

The scenes which occurred in the two Houses of Parliament, so far as I was a witness of them, were singular and unprecedented. Before the King arrived the House of Commons was assembled, and Sir Robert Peel and Sir Francis Burdett rose at the same time to address the House. Lord Althorp, amid the confusion and clamour of contending parties, following the precedent of Mr Fox, moved that Sir Francis Burdett be now heard. Sir Robert Peel, on the other hand, imitating a precedent of Lord North, said, 'And I rise to speak to that motion.' But instead of saying a few words, as Lord North had done, to put an end to all further debate, Sir Robert Peel quite lost his temper, and in tones of the most violent indignation attacked the impending dissolution. As he went on the Tower guns began to fire, to announce the King's arrival, and as each discharge was heard a loud cheer from the Government side interrupted Sir Robert Peel's declamation. Sir Henry Hardinge was heard to exclaim, 'The next time those guns are fired they will be shotted!' Presently we were all summoned to the House of Lords, where the King's presence had put a stop to a violent and unseemly discussion.

The King

in his speech announced the dissolution and retired to unrobe. The scene that followed was one of great excitement and confusion. As I was standing at the bar Lord Lyndhurst came up to me and said, 'Have you considered the state of Ireland? Do not you expect an insurrection?' or words to that effect. It so happened that in going into the House of Commons I had met O'Connell in the lobby. I asked him, ' Will Ireland be quiet during the general election?' and he

answered me, 'Perfectly quiet.' He did not answer for more than he was able to perform. But of course I said nothing of this to Lord Lyndhurst, and left him to indulge his anger and his gloomy foreboding.

Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville (17941865), who comes near being the St Simon of the early Victorian age, was a descendant of the fifth Lord Warwick, and of kin, therefore, to Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the Elizabethan poet and dramatist. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he became successively page to George III., private secretary to Earl Bathurst, and secretary of Jamaica - the last appointment a comfortable sinecure, which he enjoyed at home. In 1821 he was made Clerk of the Privy Council, and held the post for thirty-eight years, sacrificing the chances of political distinction which his connections and abilities had promised him, but using his opportunities for the composition of a work which ranks among the most important of English historical memoirs. His Journal of the Reigns of King George IV., King William IV., and Queen Victoria, edited by Henry Reeve of the Edinburgh Review, and published posthumously in 1874-87, covers the forty years between 1820 and 1860, which closed with his retirement from office. Greville's official position had brought him in touch with politicians of both parties; and as a man of the world he was familiar alike on the racecourse and in the drawing-room. These advantages, combined with a native keenness of observation, a cultured versatility, and the accomplishment of an easy and gentleman-like style, enabled him to enrich our literature with a singularly valuable picture of the politics and society of his time.

acter.

Queen Victoria in 1837.

August 30th.-All that I hear of the young Queen leads to the conclusion that she will some day play a conspicuous part, and that she has a great deal of charIt is clear enough that she had long been silently preparing herself, and had been prepared by those about her (and very properly), for the situation to which she was destined. The impressions she has made continue to be favourable, and particularly upon Melbourne, who has a thousand times greater opportunities of knowing what her disposition and her capacity are than any other person, and who is not a man to be easily captivated or dazzled by any superficial accomplishments or mere graces of manner, or even by personal favour. Melbourne thinks highly of her sense, discretion, and good feeling; but what seem to distinguish her above everything are caution and prudence, the former to a degree which is almost unnatural in one so young, and unpleasing, because it suppresses the youthful impulses which are so graceful and attractive.

On the morning of the King's death, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham arrived at Kensington at five o'clock, and immediately desired to see 'the Queen.' They were ushered into an apartment, and in a few minutes the door opened and she came in wrapped in a dressing-gown and with slippers on her naked feet. Conyngham in a few words told her their errand, and as

soon as he uttered the words 'Your Majesty,' she instantly put out her hand to him, intimating that he was to kiss hands before he proceeded. He dropped on one knee, kissed her hand, and then went on to tell her of the late King's death. She presented her hand to the Archbishop, who likewise kissed it, and when he had done so, addressed to her a sort of pastoral charge, which she received graciously and then retired. She lost no time in giving notice to Conroy of her intentions with regard to him; she saw him, and desired him to name the reward he expected for his services to her parents. He asked for the Red Riband, an Irish peerage, and a pension of £3000 a year. She replied that the two first rested with her Ministers, and she could not engage for them, but that the pension he should have. It is not easy to ascertain the exact cause of her antipathy to him, but it has probably grown with her growth, and results from divers causes. The person in the world she loves best is the Baroness Lehzen, and Lehzen and Conroy were enemies. There was formerly a Baroness Spaeth at Kensington, lady-in-waiting to the Duchess, and Lehzen and Spaeth were intimate friends. Conroy quarrelled with the latter and got her dismissed, and this Lehzen never forgave. She may have instilled into the Princess a dislike and bad opinion of Conroy, and the evidence of these sentiments, which probably escaped neither the Duchess nor him, may have influenced their conduct towards her, for, strange as it is, there is good reason to believe that she thinks she has been ill-used by both of them for some years past. Her manner to the Duchess is, however, irreproachable, and they appear to be on cordial and affectionate terms. Madame de Lehzen is the only person who is constantly with her. When any of the Ministers come to see her, the Baroness retires at one door as they enter the other, and the audience over, she returns to the Queen. It has been remarked that when applications are made to Her Majesty, she seldom or never gives an immediate answer, but says she will consider of it, and it is supposed that she does this because she consults Melbourne about everything, and waits to have her answer suggested by him. however, that such is her habit even with him, and that when he talks to her upon any subject upon which an opinion is expected from her, she tells him she will think it over, and let him know her sentiments the next day.

He says,

The day she went down to visit the Queen Dowager at Windsor, to Melbourne's great surprise she said to him that as the flag on the Round Tower was half-mast high, and they might perhaps think it necessary to elevate it upon her arrival, it would be better to send orders beforehand not to do so. He had never thought of the flag, or knew anything about it, but it showed her knowledge of forms and her attention to trifles. Her manner to Queen Adelaide was extremely kind and affectionate, and they were both greatly affected at meeting. The Queen Dowager said to her that the only favour she had to ask of her was to provide for the retirement, with their pensions, of the personal attendants of the late King, Whiting and Bachelor, who had likewise been the attendants of George IV.; to which she replied that it should be attended to, but she could not give any promise on the subject.

She is upon terms of the greatest cordiality with Lord Melbourne, and very naturally. Everything is new and delightful to her. She is surrounded with the most exciting and interesting enjoyments: her occupations,

her pleasures, her business, her Court, all present an unceasing round of gratifications. With all her prudence and discretion she has great animal spirits, and enters into the magnificent novelties of her position with the zest and curiosity of a child.

Macaulay's Conversation.

January 21st.—I dined with Lady Holland yesterday. Everything there is exactly the same as it used to be, excepting only the person of Lord Holland, who seems to be pretty well forgotten. The same talk went merrily round, the laugh rang loudly and frequently, and, but for the black and the mob-cap of the lady, one might have fancied he had never lived or had died half a century ago. Such are, however, affections and friendships, and such is the world. Macaulay dined there, and I never was more struck than upon this occasion by the inexhaustible variety and extent of his information. He is not so agreeable as such powers and resources ought to make any man, because the vessel out of which it is all poured forth is so ungraceful and uncouth; his voice unmusical and monotonous, his face not merely inexpressive but positively heavy and dull, no fire in his eye, no intelligence playing round his mouth, nothing which bespeaks the genius and learning stored within, and which burst out with such extraordinary force. It is impossible to mention any book in any language with which he is not familiar; to touch upon any subject, whether relating to persons or things, on which he does not know everything that is to be known. And if he could tread less heavily on the ground, if he could touch the subjects he handles with a lighter hand, if he knew when to stop as well as he knows what to say, his talk would be as attractive as it is wonderful. What Henry Taylor said of him is epigrammatic and true, 'that his memory has swamped his mind;' and though I do not think, as some people say, that his own opinions are completely suppressed by the load of his learning so that you know nothing of his mind, it appears to me true that there is less of originality in him, less exhibition of his own character, than there probably would be if he was less abundantly stored with the riches of the minds of others. We had yesterday a party well composed for talk, for there were listeners of intelligence, and a good specimen of the sort of society of this house-Macaulay, Melbourne, Morpeth, Duncannon, Baron Rolfe, Allen and Lady Holland, and John Russell came in the evening. I wish that a shorthand writer could have been there to take down all the conversation, or that I could have carried it away in my head; because it was curious in itself, and curiously illustrative of the characters of the performers. Before dinner some mention was made of the portraits of the Speakers in the Speaker's House, and I asked how far they went back. Macaulay said he was not sure, but certainly as far as Sir Thomas More. 'Sir Thomas More?' said Lady Holland. 'I did not know he had been Speaker.' 'Oh, yes,' said Macaulay; ‘don't you remember when Cardinal Wolsey came down to the House of Commons and More was in the chair?' and then he told the whole of that well-known transaction, and all More had said. At dinner, amongst a variety of persons and subjects, principally ecclesiastical, which were discussed-for Melbourne loves all sorts of theological talk-we got upon India and Indian men of eminence, proceeding from Gleig's Life of Warren Hastings, which Macaulay said was the worst book