Chapter VIII: Lord Acton's List of the Hundred Best Books (1)

Every one has heard of Lord Avebury's (Sir John Lubbock's) Hundred Best Books, not every one of Lord Acton's. It is the privilege of the _Pall Mall Magazine_ {225} to publish this latter list, the final impression as to reading of one of the most scholarly men that England has known in our time. The list in question is, as it were, an omitted chapter of a book that was one of the successes of its year--_The Letters of Lord Acton to Miss Mary Gladstone_--published by Mr. George Allen. That series of letters made very pleasant reading. They showed Lord Acton not as a Dryasdust, but as a very human personage indeed, with sympathies invariably in the right place.

Nor can his literary interests be said to have been restricted, for he read history and biography with avidity, and probably knew more of theology than any other layman of modern times. In imaginative literature, however, his critical instinct was perhaps less keen. He called Heine "a bad second to Schiller in poetry," which is absurd; and he thought George Eliot the greatest of modern novelists. In arriving at the latter judgment he had the excuse of personal friendship and admiration for a woman whose splendid intellectual gifts were undeniable.

In one letter we find Lord Acton discussing with Miss Gladstone the eternal question of the hundred best books. Sir John Lubbock had complained to her of the lack of a guide or supreme authority on the choice of books. Lord Acton had replied that, "although he had something to learn on the graver side of human knowledge," Sir John would execute his own scheme better than almost anybody. We all know that Sir John Lubbock attempted this at a lecture delivered at the Great Ormond Street Working Men's College; that that lecture has been reprinted again and again in a book entitled _The Pleasures of Life_, and that the publishers have sold more than two hundred thousand copies--a kind of success that might almost make some of our popular novelists turn green with envy. Later on in the correspondence Lord Acton quoted one of the popes, who said that "fifty books would include every good idea in the world." "But," continued Lord Acton, "literature has doubled since then, and it would be hard to do without a hundred."

Lord Acton was possessed of the happy thought that he would like some of his friends and acquaintances each to name his ideal hundred best books--as for example Bishop Lightfoot, Dean Church, Dean Stanley, Canon Liddon, Professor Max Muller, Mr. J. R. Lowell, Professor E. A. Freeman, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. John Morley, Sir Henry Maine, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Tennyson, Cardinal Newman, Mr. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, Professor Goldwin Smith, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Mark Pattison, and Mr. J. A. Symonds. Strange to say, he thought there would be a surprising agreement between these writers as to which were the hundred best books. I am all but certain, however, that there would not have been more than twenty books in common between rival schools of thought--the secular and the ecclesiastical--between, let us say, Mr. John Morley and Cardinal Newman. But it is probable that not one of these eminent men would have furnished a list with any similarity whatever to the remainder. Each would have written down his own hundred favourites, and herein may be admitted is an evidence of the futility of all such attempts. The best books are the books that have helped us most to see life in all its complex bearings, and each individual needs a particular kind of mental food quite unlike the diet that best stimulates his neighbour. Writing more than a year later, Lord Acton said that he had just drawn out a list of recommended authors for his son, as being the company he would like him to keep; but this list is not available--it is not the one before me. That was compiled yet another twelve months afterwards, when we find Lord Acton sending to Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) his own ideal "hundred best books." This list is now printed for the first time. Evidently Miss Gladstone remonstrated with her friend over the character of the list; but Lord Acton defended it as being in his judgment really the hundred _best books_, apart from works on physical science--that it treated of principles that every thoughtful man ought to understand, and was calculated, in fact, to give one a clear view of the various forces that make history. "We are not considering," he adds, "what will suit an untutored savage or an illiterate peasant woman, who would never come to an end of the _Imitation_."

However, here is Lord Acton's list, which Mrs. Drew has been kind enough to place in the hands of the Editor of the _Pall Mall Magazine_. I give also Lord Acton's comment with which it opens, and I add in footnotes one or two facts about each of the authors:

* * * * *

"In answer to the question: Which are the hundred best books in the world?

"Supposing any English youth, whose education is finished, who knows common things, and is not training for a profession.

"To perfect his mind and open windows in every direction, to raise him to the level of his age so that he may know the (20 or 30) forces that have made our world what it is and still reign over it, to guard him against surprises and against the constant sources of error within, to supply him both with the strongest stimulants and the surest guides, to give force and fullness and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation and generosity and serenity to his mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won, discerning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better motive of men who are wrong, to steel him against the charm of literary beauty and talent; so that each book, thoroughly taken in, shall be the beginning of a new life, and shall make a new man of him--this list is submitted":--

1. Plato--_Laws_--Steinhart's _Introduction_. {230a}

2. Aristotle--_Politics_--Susemihl's _Commentary_. {230b}

3. Epictetus--_Encheiridion_--_Commentary_ of Simplicius. {230c}

4. St. Augustine--_Letters_. {230d}

5. St. Vincent's _Commonitorium_. {231a}

6. Hugo of S. Victor--_De Sacramentis_. {231b}

7. St. Bonaventura--_Breviloquium_. {231c}

8. St. Thomas Aquinas--_Summa contra Gentiles_. {231d}

9. Dante--_Divina Commedia_. {232a}

10. Raymund of Sabunde--_Theologia Naturalis_. {232b}

11. Nicholas of Cusa--_Concordantia Catholica_. {232c}

12. Edward Reuss--_The Bible_. {232d}

13. Pascal's Pensees--_Havet's Edition_. {233a}

14. Malebranche, _De la Recherche de la Verite_. {233b}

15. Baader--_Speculative Dogmatik_. {233c}

16. Molitor--_Philosophie der Geschichte_. {233d}

17. Astie--_Esprit de Vinet_. {233e}

18. Punjer--_Geschichte der Religions-philosophie_. {234a}

19. Rothe--_Theologische Ethik_. {234b}

20. Martensen--_Die Christliche Ethik_. {234c}

21. Oettingen--_Moralstatistik_. {234d}

22. Hartmann--_Phanomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins_. {234e}

23. Leibniz--_Letters_ edited by Klopp. {235a}

24. Brandis--_Geschichte der Philosophie_. {235b}

25. Fischer--_Franz Bacon_. {235c}

26. Zeller--_Neuere Deutsche Philosophie_. {235d}

27. Bartholomess--_Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophie Moderns_. {236a}

28. Guyon--_Morale Anglaise_. {236b}

29. Ritschl--_Entstehung der Altkatholischen Kirche_. {236c}

30. Loening--_Geschichte des Kirchenrechts_. {236d}

31. Baur--_Vorlesungen uber Dogmengeschichte_. {237a}

32. Fenelon--_Correspondence_. {237b}

33. Newman's _Theory of Development_. {237c}

34. Mozley's _University Sermons_. {237d}

35. Schneckenburger--_Vergleichende Darstellung_. {238a}

36. Hundeshagen--_Kirckenvorfassungsgeschichte_. {238b}

37. Schweizer--_Protestantische Centraldogmen_. {238c}

38. Gass--_Geschichte der Lutherischen Dogmatik_. {238d}

39. Cart--_Histoire du Mouvement Religieux dans le Canton de Vaud_. {238e}

40. Blondel--_De la Primaute_. {239a}

41. Le Blanc de Beaulieu--_Theses_. {239b}

42. Thiersch.--_Vorlesungen uber Katholizismus_. {239c}

43. Mohler--_Neue Untersuchungen_. {239d}

44. Scherer--_Melanges de Critique Religieuse_. {240a}

45. Hooker--_Ecclesiastical Polity_. {240b}

46. Weingarten--_Revolutionskirchen Englands_. {240c}

47. Kliefoth--_Acht Bucher von der Kirche_. {240d}

48. Laurent--_Etudes de l'Histoire de l'Humanite_. {240e}

49. Ferrari--_Revolutions de l'ltalie_. {241a}

50. Lange--_Geschichte des Materialismus_. {241b}

51. Guicciardini--_Ricordi Politici_. {241c}

52. Duperron--_Ambassades_. {241d}

53. Richelieu--_Testament Politique_. {242a}

54. Harrington's Writings. {242b}

55. Mignet--_Negotiations de la Succession d'Espagne_. {242c}

56. Rousseau--_Considerations sur la Pologne_. {243a}

57. Foncin--_Ministere de Turgot_. {243b}

58. Burke's _Correspondence_. {243c}

59. Las Cases--_Memorial de Ste. Helene_. {243d}

60. Holtzendorff--_Systematische Rechtsenzyklopadie_. {244a}

61. Jhering--_Geist des Romischen Rechts_. {244b}

62. Geib--_Strafrecht_. {244c}

63. Maine--_Ancient Law_. {245a}

64. Gierke--_Genossenschaftsrecht_. {245b}

65. Stahl--_Philosophie des Rechts_. {245c}

66. Gentz--_Briefwechsel mit Adam Muller_. {246a}

67. Vollgraff--_Polignosie_. {246b}

68. Frantz--_Kritik aller Parteien_. {246c}

69. De Maistre--_Considerations sur la France_. {246d}

70. Donoso Cortes--_Ecrits Politiques_. {247a}

71. Perin--_De la Richesse dans les Societes Chretiennes_. {247b}

72. Le Play--_La Reforme Sociale_. {247c}

73. Riehl--_Die Burgerliche Sociale_. {247d}

74. Sismondi--_Etudes sur les Constitutions des Peuples Libres_. {248a}

75. Rossi--_Cours du Droit Constitutionnel_. {248b}

76. Barante--_Vie de Royer Collard_. {248c}

77. Duvergier de Hauranne--_Histoire du Gouvernement Parlementaire_. {249a}

78. Madison--_Debates of the Congress of Confederation_. {249b}

79. Hamilton--_The Federalist_. {249c}

80. Calhoun--_Essay on Government_. {249d}

81. Dumont--_Sophismes Anarchiques_. {250a}

82. Quinet--_La Revolution Francaise_. {250b}

83. Stein--_Sozialismus in Frankreich_. {250c}

84. Lassalle--_System der Erworbenen Rechte_. {251a}

85. Thonissen--_Le Socialisme depuis l'Antiquite_. {251b}

86. Considerant--_Destines Sociale_. {251c}

87. Roscher--_Nationalokonomik_. {251d}

89. Mill--_System of Logic_. {251e}

90. Coleridge--_Aids to Reflection_. {252a}

91. Radowitz--_Fragmente_. {252b}

92. Gioberti--_Pensieri_. {252c}

93. Humboldt--_Kosmos_. {253a}

94. De Candolle--_Histoire des Sciences et des Savants_. {253b}

95. Darwin--_Origin of Species_. {253c}

96. Littre--_Fragments de Philosophie_. {253d}

97. Cournot--_Enchainements des Idees fondamentales_. {253e}

98. _Monatschriften der wissenschaftlichen Vereine_. {254}

This list, written in 1883 in Miss Gladstone's (Mrs. Drew's) Diary, must always have an interest in the history of the human mind.

But my readers will, I imagine, for the most part, agree with me that there are others besides untutored savages and illiterate peasant women to whom such a list is entirely impracticable. It indicates the enormous preference which on the whole Lord Acton gave to the Literature of Knowledge over the Literature of Power, to use De Quincey's famous distinction. With the exception of Dante's _Divine Comedy_ there is practically not a single book that has any title whatever to a place in the Literature of Power, a literature which many of us think the only thing in the world of books worth consideration. Great philosophy is here, and high thought. Who would for a moment wish to disparage St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, or Aquinas the Angelic? Plato and Pascal, Malebranche and Fenelon, Bossuet and Machiavelli are all among the world's immortals. Yet now and again we are bewildered by finding the least important book of a well-known author--as for example Rousseau's _Poland_ instead of the _Confessions_ and Coleridge's _Aids to Reflection_ instead of the _Poems_ or the _Biographia Literaria_. Think of an historian whose ideal of historical work was so high that he despised all who worked only from printed documents, selecting the _Memorial of St. Helena_ of Las Casas in preference not only to a hundred- and-one similar compilations concerning Napoleon's exile, but in preference to Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon.

Sometimes Lord Acton names a theologian who is absolutely out-of-date, at others a philosopher who is in the same case. But on the whole it is a fascinating list as an index to what a well-trained mind thought the noblest mental equipment for life's work. At the best, it is true, it would represent but one half of life. But then Lord Acton recognized this when he asked that men should be "steeled against the charm of literary beauty and talent," and he was assuming in any case that all the books in aesthetic literature, the best poetry and the best history had already been read, as he undoubtedly had read them.

"The charm of literary beauty and talent!" There is the whole question. Nothing really matters for the average man, so far as books are concerned, but this charm, and I am criticizing Lord Acton's list for the average man. The student who has got beyond it need not worry himself about classified lists. He may read his Plato, and Aristotle, his Pascal and Newman, his Christian apologists and German theologians, as he wills; or he may read in some other quite different direction. Guidance is impossible to a mind at such a stage of cultivation as Lord Acton had in view.

Only minds at a more primitive stage of culture than this most learned and most accomplished man seemed able to conceive of, could be bettered by advice as to reading. Given, indeed, contact with some superior mind, which out of its rich equipment of culture should advise as to the books that might be most profitably read, I could imagine advice being helpful. It would be of no value, it is true, to an untutored savage or illiterate peasant, but to a youth fresh from school-books and much modern fiction, to a young girl about to enter upon life in its more serious aspects, it would be immensely serviceable. It was of such as these that Mr. Ruskin thought when he wrote of "King's Treasures" in _Sesame and Lilies_, and the same idea was doubtless in Sir John Lubbock's mind when he lectured on the "Hundred Best Books." But Lord Avebury's list had its limitations, it seems to me, for any one who has an interest in good literature and guidance to the reading thereof. To give "Scott" as one book and "Shakspere" as another was I suggest to shirk much responsibility of selection. Scott is a whole library, Shakspere is yet another. One may give "Keats" or "Shelley" because they are more limited in quantity. Even to name novels by Charles Kingsley and Bulwer Lytton in this select hundred was to demonstrate to men of this generation that Lord Avebury being of an earlier one had a bias in favour of the books that we are all outgrowing. To include Mill's _Logic_ is to ignore the Time Spirit acting on philosophy; to include Tennyson's _Idylls_ its action on poetry. Mill and Tennyson will always live in literature but not I think by these books.

But the fact is that there is no possibility of naming the hundred best books. No one could quarrel with Lord Avebury if he had named these as his hundred own favourites among the books of the world. Still, it might have been _his_ hundred; it could not possibly have been any one else's hundred because every man of education must make his own choice. No! the naming of the hundred best books for any large, general audience is quite impossible. All that is possible in such a connexion is to state emphatically that there are very few books that are equally suitable to every kind of intellect. Temperament as well as intellectual endowment make for so much in reading. Take, for example, the _Imitation_ of _Christ_. George Eliot, although not a Christian, found it soul-satisfying. Thackeray, as I think a more robust intellect, found it well nigh as mischievous as did Eugene Sue, whose anathematizations in his novel _The Wandering Jew_ are remembered by all. Other books that have been the outcome of piety of mind leave less room for difference of opinion. Surely Dante's _Divine Comedy_, and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, make an universal appeal. That universal appeal is the point at which alone guidance is possible. There are great books that can be read only by the few, but surely the very greatest appeal alike to the educated and the illiterate, to the man of rich intellectual endowment and to the man to whom all processes of reasoning are incomprehensible. _Hamlet_ is a wonderful test of this quality. It "holds the boards" at the small provincial theatre, it is enacted by Mr. Crummles to an illiterate peasantry, and it is performed by the greatest actor to the most select city audience. It is made the subject of study by learned commentators. It is world-embracing.

Are there in the English language, including translations, a hundred books that stand the test as _Hamlet_ stands it? No two men would make the same list of books that answer to this demand of an universal appeal, and obviously each nation must make its own list. Mine is for English boys and girls just growing into manhood and womanhood, or for those who have had no educational advantages in early years. I exclude living writers, and I give the hundred in four groups.

POETRY.

1. The Bible. {260a}

2. _The Odyssey_, translated by Butcher and Lang. {260b}

3. The _Iliad_, translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers. {260b}

4. Aeschylus, translated by George Warr. {261a}

5. Sophocles, translated by J. S. Phillimore. {261a}

6. Euripides, translated by Gilbert Murray. {261a}

7. Virgil, translated by Dryden. {261b}

8. Catullus, translated by Theodore Martin. {261c}

9. Horace, translated by Theodore Martin. {261d}

10. Dante, translated by Cary. {262a}

11. Shakspere, _Hamlet_. {262b}

12. Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_. {262c}

13. FitzGerald, _Omar Khayyam_. {263a}

14. Goethe, _Faust_. {263b}

15. Shelley. {263c}

16. Byron. {263d}

17. Wordsworth. {264a}

18. Keats. {264b}

19. Burns. {264c}

20. Coleridge. {264d}

21. Cowper. {264e}

22. Crabbe. {265a}

23. Tennyson. {265b}

24. Browning. {265c}

25. Milton. {265d}

FICTION.

1. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_. {266a}

2. _Don Quixote_, by Cervantes. {266b}

3. _Pilgrim's Progress_, by Bunyan. {266c}

4. _Robinson Crusoe_, by Defoe. {266d}

5. _Gulliver's Travels_, by Swift. {267a}

6. _Clarissa_, by Richardson. {267b}

7. _Tom Jones_, by Fielding. {267c}

8. _Rasselas_, by Johnson. {267d}

9. _Vicar of Wakefield_, by Goldsmith. {268a}

10. _Sentimental Journey_, by Sterne. {268b}

11. _Nightmare Abbey_, by Peacock. {268c}

12. _Kenilworth_, by Walter Scott. {268d}

13. _Pere Goriot_, by Balzac. {268e}

14. _The Three Musketeers_, by Dumas. {269a}

15. _Vanity Fair_, by Thackeray. {269b}

16. _Villette_, by Charlotte Bronte. {269c}

17. _David Copperfield_, by Charles Dickens. {269d}

18. _Barchester Towers_, by Anthony Trollope. {269e}

19. Boccaccio's _Decameron_. {269f}

20. _Wuthering Heights_, by Emily Bronte. {270a}

21. _The Cloister and the Hearth_, by Charles Reade. {270b}

22. _Les Miserables_, by Victor Hugo. {270c}

23. _Cranford_, by Mrs. Gaskell. {270d}

24. _Consuelo_, by George Sand. {270e}

25. _Charles O'Malley_, by Charles Lever. {270f}

MISCELLANEOUS. HISTORY, ESSAYS, ETC.

1. Macaulay, _History of England_. {271a}

2. Carlyle, _Past and Present_. {271b}

3. Motley, _Dutch Republic_. {271c}

4. Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. {271d}

5. Plutarch's _Lives_. {272a}

6. Montaigne's _Essays_. {272b}

7. Richard Steele, _Essays_. {272c}

8. Lamb, _Essays of Elia_. {272d}

9. De Quincey, _Opium Eater_. {272e}

10. Hazlitt, _Essays_. {273a}

11. Borrow, _Lavengro_. {273b}

12. Emerson, _Representative Men_. {273c}

13. Landor, _Imaginary Conversations_. {273d}

14. Arnold, _Essays in Criticism_. {273e}

15. Herodotus, _Macaulay's Translation_. {273f}

16. Howell's _Familiar Letters_. {274a}

17. Buckle's _History of Civilization_. {274b}

18. Tacitus, Church and Brodribb's Translation. {274c}

19. Mitford's _Our Village_. {274d}

20. Green's _Short History of the English People_. {274e}

21. Taine, _Ancient Regime_. {275a}

22. Bourrienne, _Napoleon_. {275b}

23. Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_. {275c}

24. Walton, _Compleat Angler_. {275d}

25 White, _Natural History of Selbourne_. {276a}

BIOGRAPHICAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL.

1. Boswell's Johnson. {276b}

2. Lockhart's Scott. {276c}

3. Pepys's Diary. {276d}

4. Walpole's Letters. {277a}

5. The Memoirs of Count de Gramont. {277b}

6. Gray's Letters. {277c}

7. Southey's Nelson. {277d}

8. Moore's Byron. {277e}

9. Hogg's Shelley. {278a}

10. Rousseau's Confessions. {278b}

11. Froude's Carlyle. {278c}

12. Rogers's Table Talk. {279a}

13. Confessions of St. Augustine. {279b}

14. Amiel's Journal. {279c}

15. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. {279d}

16. Lewes's Life of Goethe. {279e}

17. Sime's Life of Lessing. {280a}

18. Franklin's Autobiography. {280b}

19. Greville's Memoirs. {280c}

20. Forster's Life of Dickens. {280d}

21. Madame D'Arblay's Diary. {280e}

22. Newman's Apologia. {281a}

23. The Paston Letters. {281b}

24. Cellini's Autobiography. {281c}

25. Browne's Religio Medici. {281d}

My readers for the most part have read every one of these books. I throw out this list as a tentative effort in the direction of suggesting a hundred books with which to start a library. The young student will find much to amuse, and certainly nothing here to bore him. These books will not make him a prig, as Mr. James Payn said that Lord Avebury's list would make him a prig. They will make the dull man less dull, the bright man brighter. Here is good, cheerful, robust reading for boy and girl, for man and woman. There are many sins of omission, but none of commission. Our young friend will add to this list fast enough, but there is nothing in it that he may not read with profit. These books, I repeat, make an universal appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the unlearned may enjoy them also. They are, as _Hamlet_ is, of universal interest. Devotion to science will not impair a taste for them, nor will zest for abstract speculations. Not even those who are "better skilled in grammar than in poetry" can fail to appreciate. These hundred books will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers who are quite capable of selecting for themselves. One last word of advice. Let not the young reader buy large quantities of books at once or be beguiled into subscribing for some cheap series which will save him the trouble of selecting. He may buy many books from such cheap series afterwards, but not his first hundred, I think. These should be acquired through much saving, and purchased with great thought and deliberation. The purchase of a book should become to the young book-lover a most solemn function.

_Butler and Tanner_, _The Selwood Printing Works_, _Frome_, _and London_

Footnotes:

{3} Richard Garnett (1835-1906) was son of the philologist of the same name who was for a time priest-vicar of Lichfield Cathedral. He attended the Johnson Celebration on Sept. 18, 1905, and proposed "the Immortal Memory of Dr. Johnson." He died on the following Good Friday, April 13, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery April 17, 1906.

{6} Anna Seward (1747-1809). Her works were published after her death:--_The Poetical Works of Anna Seward_. _With Extracts from her Literary Correspondence_. Edited by Walter Scott, Esq. In three volumes--_John Ballantyne & Co._, 1810. _Letters of Anna Seward written between the Years_ 1784 _and_ 1807. In six volumes. Archibald Constable & Co., 1811. "Longwinded and florid" one biographer calls her letters, but by the aid of what Scott calls 'the laudable practice of skipping' they are quite entertaining.

{8} Sir Robert Thomas White-Thomson, K.C.B., wrote to me in reference to this estimate of Miss Seward from Broomford Manor, Exbourne, North Devon, and his letter seemed of sufficient importance from a genealogical standpoint for me to ask his permission to make an extract from the letter: "I have read your address in a Lichfield newspaper. Apart from the wider and more important bearings of your words, those which had reference to the Seward family were especially welcome to me. You will understand this when I tell you that, with the exception of the Romney portrait of Anna, and a few other objects left 'away' by her will, my grandfather, Thomas White, of Lichfield Close, her cousin and residuary legatee, became possessed of all the contents of her house. Some of the books and engravings were sold by auction, but the remainder were taken good care of, and passed to me on my mother's death in 1860. As thus, 'in a way' the representative of the 'Swan of Lichfield,' you can easily see what such an appreciation of her as was yours means to me. Of course I know her weak points, and how the pot of clay must suffer in trying to 'bump' the pot of iron in midstream, but I also know that she was no ordinary personage in her day, when the standard of feminine culture was low, and I have resented some things that have been written of her. Mrs. Oliphant treats her kindly in her _Literary History of England_, and now I have your 'appreciation' of her, for which I beg to thank you."

{15} Once certainly in the lines "On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet":--

Well try'd through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of ev'ry friendless name the friend.

{18} _Prayers and Meditations_: composed by Samuel Johnson, LL.D., and published from his Manuscripts by George Straham, D.D., Prebendary of Rochester and Vicar of Islington in Middlesex, 1785. Dr. Birkbeck Hill suggests that Johnson could not have contemplated the publication of the work in its entirety, but the world is the better for the self revelation, notwithstanding Cowper's remark in a letter to Newton (August 27, 1785), that "the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to the author's memory; for by the specimen of it that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency to expose both to ridicule."

{19} There is an edition with a brief Introduction by Augustine Birrell, published by Elliot Stock in 1904, and another, with an Introduction by "H. C.," was issued by H. R. Allenson in 1906.

{31} The Rev. Angus Mackay, author of _The Brontes In Fact and Fiction_. He was Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, when he died, aged 54, on New Year's Day, 1907. Earlier in life he had been a Curate at Olney.

{34} John Newton (1725-1807) had been the captain of a slave ship before his 'conversion.' He became Curate of Olney in 1764 and published the famous Olney Hymns with Cowper in 1779. In 1780 Newton became the popular Incumbent of St. Mary Woolnoth, London.

{35} See the Globe _Cowper_, with an Introduction by the Rev. William Benham, the Rector of St. Edmund's, Lombard Street. Canon Benham has written many books, but he has done no better piece of work than this fine Introduction which first appeared in 1870.

{36} Thomas Scott (1747-1821). His commentaries first appeared in weekly parts between 1788 and 1792, and were first issued in ten volumes, 1823-25. He was Rector of Astin Sandford in Buckinghamshire from 1801 until his death. His _Life_ was published by his son, the Rev. John Scott, in 1822.

{37} Thomas Percy (1729-1811) became Vicar of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, in 1753. Johnson visited him here in 1764. In 1765 Percy published his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. He became Bishop of Dromere in 1782.

{38a} William Hayley (1745-1820) was counted a great poet in his day and placed in the same rank with Dryden and Pope. He wrote _Triumphs of Temper_ 1781, _Triumphs of Music_ 1804, and many other works; but he is of interest here by virtue of his _Life and Letters of William Cowper_, _Esq._, _with Remarks on Epistolary Writers_, published in 1803.

{38b} Robert Southey (1774-1843), whose _Life and Works of Cowper_ is in fifteen volumes, which were published by Baldwin & Cradock between the years 1835 and 1837. The attractive form in which the works are presented, the many fine steel engravings, and the excellent type make this still the only way for book lovers to approach Cowper. Southey had to suffer the competition of the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, who produced, through Saunders & Otley, about the same time a reprint of Hayley's biography with much of Cowper's correspondence that is not in Southey's volumes. The whole correspondence was collected by Mr. Thomas Wright, and published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1904.

{38c} Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) in his _Literary Studies_. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) in his _Essays_. Mrs. Oliphant (1828-1897) in her _Literary History of England_; and George Eliot (1819-1880) in her _Essays_ (Worldliness and Other Worldliness).

{44} It has no bearing upon the subject that the horrors of the Bastille at the time of its fall were greatly exaggerated.

{47} _Theology in the English Poets_, by Stopford A. Brooke.

{56} Mr. Leslie Stephen, who became Sir Leslie Stephen, K.C.B., in 1902, was born in 1832 and died in 1904. In addition to the article in the _D.N.B._, this great critic has one on "Cowper and Rousseau" in his _Hours in a Library_.

{62} Sir John Fenn (1739-1794), the antiquary, obtained the originals of the _Paston Letters_ from Thomas Worth, a chemist of Diss. The following lines were first printed in Cowper's Collected Poems, by Mr. J. C. Bailey in his admirable edition of 1906, published by the Methuens:--

Two omens seem propitious to my fame,
Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name;
A name, which, all self-flattery far apart
Belongs to one who venerates in his heart
The wise and good, and therefore of the few
Known by these titles, sir, both yours and you.

They were written to please his cousin John Johnson who was to oblige Fenn by giving him an autograph of Cowper's.

{66} Edward Stanley (1779-1849), the father of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881), Dean of Westminster, was Bishop of Norwich from 1837 to 1849.

{80} Borrow's step-daughter, Henrietta Clarke, married James McOubrey, an Irish doctor. She outlived Borrow for many years, dying at Great Yarmouth in 1904. All her literary effects, including many interesting manuscripts, have been passed on to me by her executor, Mr. Hubert Smith, and these will be used in my forthcoming biography of Borrow.

{84} I ventured to ask my friend Mr. Birrell for a line to read to my Norwich audience and he sent me the following characteristic letter dated December 8, 1903:--

". . . For my part I should leave George Borrow alone, to take his own part even as Isopel Berners learnt to take hers in the great house at Long Melford. He has an appealing voice which no sooner falls on the ear of the born Borrovian, than up the lucky fellow must get and follow his master to the end of the chapter.

"However, if you will insist upon going out into the highways and hedges and compelling the wayfaring man--though a fool--to come in and take a seat at the _Lavengro_ feast, nobody can stop you.

"The great thing is to get people to read the Borrow books: there is nothing else to be done. If, after having read them, some enthusiasts go on to learn _Romany_ and seek to trace authorities on Gypsies and Gypsy lore--why, let them. They may soon know more about Gypsies than Borrow ever did--but they will never write about them as he did.

"The essence of the matter is to enjoy Borrow's books for themselves alone. As for Borrow's biography, it appears to me either that he has already written it, or it is not worth writing. Anyhow, place the books in the forefront, reprint things as often as you dare without _note or comment_ or even _prefatory appreciation_, and you cannot but earn the gratitude of every true Borrovian who in consequence of your efforts come upon the Borrow books for the first time."

{97} M. Rene Huchon, who addressed the visitors at the Crabbe Celebration, published his _George Crabbe and his Times_: _A Critical and Biographical Study_, through Mr. John Murray, early in the present year, 1907.

{98} This reproach has since been removed by the appearance of the _Complete Works of George Crabbe_ in three volumes of the Cambridge English Classics Series, published by the Cambridge University Press, and edited by Dr. A. W. Ward, the Master of Peterhouse.

{100} The original letter is in the possession of Mr. A. M. Broadley, of Bridport. It is reprinted from the Hanmer Correspondence in an appendix to M. Huchon's biography.

{106} But M. Huchon makes it clear in _George Crabbe and his Times_ that Crabbe declined at the last moment to marry Miss Charlotte Ridout, who seems to have been really in love with him.

{138} This monument, a fine statue facing the house which replaces the one in which Sir Thomas Browne lived, was unveiled in October, 1905.

{144} For every student Cunningham's nine volumes have been superseded since this Address was delivered by the sixteen volumes of the Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee for the Clarendon Press.

{145} The other side of the picture may, however, be presented. Horace, says Cunningham (Walpole's _Letters_, vol. i.), hated Norfolk, the native country of his father, and delighted in Kent, the native country of his mother. "He did not care for Norfolk ale, Norfolk turnips, Norfolk dumplings and Norfolk turkeys. Its flat, sandy aguish scenery was not to his taste." He dearly liked what he calls most happily, "the rich, blue prospects of Kent."

{153} Goldsmith doubtless had more than one experience in his mind when he wrote of:--

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.

Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland, served to provide many concrete features of the picture, but that the author drew upon his experiences of Houghton is believed by his principal biographer, John Forster, by Professor Masson and others, and on no other assumption than that of an English village can the lines be explained:--

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man.

{185} Originally written to serve as an Introduction to an edition of Mr. George Meredith's _Tragic Comedians_, of which book Lassalle is the hero. That edition was published by Messrs. Ward Lock & Bowden, who afterwards transferred all rights in it to Messrs. Archibald Constable & Co., by whose courtesy the paper is included here.

{186} Lassalle's _Tagebuch_, edited by Paul Lindau, 1891.

{187} _Henrich Heine's sammtliche Werke_, vol. xxii., pp. 84-99.

{188} The most concise account of the affair is contained in the story of Sophie Solutzeff, entitled, _Eine Liebes-episode aus dem Leben Ferdinand Lassalle's_. This booklet, which is published in German, French, and Russian, professes to be an account of Lassalle's love for a young Russian lady, Sophie Solutzeff, some two years before he met Helene von Donniges. He is represented as being himself in a frenzy of passion; the lady, however, rejecting as a lover the man she had been prepared to worship as a teacher. There can be little doubt that the whole story is a fabrication, in which the Countess von Hatzfeldt had a considerable part. The Countess was rightly judged by popular opinion to have played a discreditable role in the love passages between Lassalle and Helene; and Helene's own account of the matter in her _Reminiscences_ was an additional blow at the pseudo-friend who might have helped the lovers so much. What more natural than that the Countess should be anxious to break the force of Helene's indictment, by endorsing the popular, and indeed accurate judgment, that Lassalle was very inflammable where women were concerned. This she could do by depicting him, a little earlier, in precisely similar bondage to that which he had professed to Helene. That the Countess wrote, or assisted to write, the compilation of letters and diaries, does not, however, destroy its value as a record of Lassalle's struggle on her behalf. That account, if not written by Lassalle, was written or inspired by the other great actor in the Hatzfeldt drama, and may therefore be considered a fairly safe guide in recounting the story. Mr. Israel Zangwill, since the above was written, has published an article on Lassalle in his _Dreamers of the Ghetto_. He accepts Sophie Solutzeff's story as genuine, but that is merely the credulity of an accomplished romancer.

{198} Debate in the German Reichstag, April 2, 1881. Quoted by W. H. Dawson.

{213} Becker's _Enthullungen_, 1868.

{218} Briefe an Hans von Bulow, 1885.

{225} Reprinted with alterations from the _Pall Mall Magazine_ of July, 1905, by kind permission of the proprietor and editor; and of Miss Mary Gladstone (Mrs. Drew) to whom the list of books was sent in a letter.

{230a} Plato (B.C. 427-347). Dr. Jowett has translated the _Laws_. See _The Dialogues_ of Plato With Analysis and Introductions by Benjamin Jowett. In Five Volumes. Vol. V. The Clarendon Press.

{230b} Aristotle (B.C. 384-322). Dr. Jowett has translated the _Politics_ into English. Two volumes. The Clarendon Press.

{230c} Epictetus (born A.D. 50, died in Rome, but date unknown). His _Encheiridion_, a collection of Maxims, was made by his pupil Arrian. The best translation into English is that by George Long, first published in 1877. (George Bell.)

{230d} St. Augustine (A.D. 353-430). See a translation of his _Letters_ edited by Mary Allies, published in 1890.

{231a} St. Vincent of Lerins--Vincentius Lirinensis. Native of Gaul. Monk in monastery of Lerinat, opposite Cannes. Died about 450. In 434 wrote _Commonitorium adversus profanus omnium heretiecrum novitates_. It contains the famous threefold text of orthodoxy--"quod ubique, quod semper, quod ad omnibus creditum est." Printed at Paris, 1663 and later. Also in Mignes, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 50. Hallam calls the text "the celebrated rule." It is all now remembered of St. V. by most educated men. It is shown to be of no practical value in an able criticism by Sir G. C. Lewis, _Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion_, 2nd ed., 1875, p. 57. Mr Gladstone reviewed this work of Lewis, _Nineteenth Century_ March, 1877.

{231b} Hugo of St. Victor (1097-1141), a celebrated Mystic born at Ypres in Flanders. His collected works first appeared at Rouen in 1648.

{231c} St. Bonaventura (A.D. 1221-1274). Born at Bagnarea, near Orvieto, in Tuscany, became a Franciscan monk and afterwards a Professor of Theology at Paris, where he gained the title of the "Seraphic Doctor." Made a Cardinal by Pope Gregory X, who sent him as his Legate to the Council at Lyons, where he died. In 1482 he was canonized. His writings appeared at Rome in 1588-96.

{231d} St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274). The Angelic Doctor was born at the castle of Rocca-Secca near Aquino, between Rome and Naples. Entered the Dominican Order in 1243. Went to Paris in 1252 and attained great distinction as a theologian. His _Summa Theologiae_ was followed by his _Summa contra Gentiles_. His works were first collected in 17 volumes in 1570. Aquinas was canonized in 1323.

{232a} Dante (A.D. 1265-1321). The _Divina Commedia_ has been translated into English by many scholars. The best known version is the poetical renderings of H. F. Cary (1772-1844) and W. W. Longfellow (1807- 1882) and the prose translations (the "Inferno" only) of John Carlyle (1801-79) and A. J. Butler in whose three volumes of the "Purgatory," "Paradise" and "Inferno" the original Italian may be studied side by side with the translation.

{232b} Raymund of Sabunde, a physician of Toulouse of the fifteenth century. He published his _Theologia naturalis_ at Strassburg in 1496. "I found the concerts of the author to be excellent, the contexture of his works well followed, and his project full of pietie" writes Montaigne in telling us of his father's request that he should translate Sabunde's _Theologia naturalis_. Florio's Translation. Book II, Ch. XII.

{232c} Nicholas of Cusa (A.D. 1401-1464) was born at Kues on the Moselle. His _De Concordantia Catholica_ was a treatise in favour of the Councils of the Church and against the authority of the Pope. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Nicholas V.

{232d} Edward Reuss (1804-1891), a professor of Theology, who was born at Strassburg. Published his _History of the New Testament_ in 1842 and his _History of the Old Testament_ in 1881. _The Bible_, _a new translation with Introduction and Commentaries_, appeared in 19 volumes between 1874 and 1881.

{233a} Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662). Born at Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne. His _Letters to a Provincial_, written in 1656-7, made his fame by their attack on the Jesuists. His _Pensees_ appeared after his death, in 1669, and they have reappeared in many forms, "edited" by many schools of thought. The edition edited by Ernest Havet (1813-1889) was published in 1852.

{233b} Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715). Born in Paris. The works of Descartes drew him to philosophy. The famous dictum, "Malebranche saw all things in God," had reference to his treatise, _De la Recherche de la Verite_, first published in 1674.

{233c} Baader, Franz (1765-1841). A speculative philosopher and theologian, born at Munich, who endeavoured to reconcile the tenets of the Church of Rome with philosophy. Of his many works his _Vorlesungen uber Spekulative Dogmatik_ is here selected. It appeared between 1828 and 1838 in five parts.

{233d} Molitor, Franz Joseph (1779-1860). A philosophical writer, born near Frankfurt. His _Philosophie der Geschichte_, _oder uber Tradition_ was published in 4 volumes between 1827 and 1853.

{233e} Astie, Jean Frederic (1822-1894). A French Protestant theologian, who held a Chair of Theology in New York from 1848 to 1853. In 1856 became a Professor in Switzerland. He published his _Esprit d'Alexandre Vinet_ at Paris in 1861. In 1882 appeared his _Le Vinet de la legende et celui de l'histoire_.

{234a} Punjer, Bernard (1850-1884). A theologian whose _Geschichte der Religions-philosophie_ was much the vogue with theological students at the time of its publication in 1880. It was reissued in 1887 in an English translation by W. Hastie, under the title, _History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant_. Punjer also wrote _Die Religionslehre Kant's_, published at Jena in 1874.

{234b} Rothe, Richard (1799-1867). A Protestant theologian. Was for a time preacher to the Prussian Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in succession Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, at Heidelberg, and at Bonn. His _Theologische Ethik_ appeared at Wittenberg in 3 volumes between 1845 and 1848.

{234c} Martensen, Hans Lassen (1808-1884). A Danish theologian, born at Fleusburg and died at Copenhagen, where he was long a Professor of Theology. He became Bishop of Zeeland. _Die Christliche Ethik_ was one of many works by him. He also wrote _Die Christliche Dogmatik_, _Die Christliche Taufe_, and a _Life of Jakob Bohme_.

{234d} Oettingen, Alexander von (1827-1905). A theologian and statistician principally associated with Dorpat in Livonia, where he studied from 1845 to 1849. He became Professor of Theology at its famous University. His principal book is entitled, _Die Moralstatistik in ihrer Bedeutung fur eine Sozialethik_.

{234e} Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard von (1842-1906). Born in Berlin, the son of General Robert von Hartmann, and served for some time in the Artillery of the German Army. He has written many philosophical works. His _Phanomenologie des sittlichlen Bewusstseins_ was published in Berlin in 1879.

{235a} Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716). Born at Leipzig and died at Hanover. Visited Paris and London, and became acquainted with Boyle and Newton. In 1676 appointed to a librarianship at Hanover. His philosophical views are mainly derived from his letters. The edition of the _Letters_, edited by Ouno Klopp (1822-1903), appeared at Hanover between 1862 and 1884 in 11 volumes.

{235b} Brandis, Christian August (1790-1867). A philosopher and philologist, born in Hildesheim, studied in Gottingen and Kiel. Accompanied Niebuhr as Secretary to the Embassy to Rome in 1816. In 1822 became Professor of Philosophy in Bonn. His _Handbuch der Geschichte der griechischromischen Philosophie_, doubtless here referred to by Lord Acton, was published in Berlin at long intervals (1835-66) in 3 volumes.

{235c} Fischer, Kuno (1824-1907). Born at Sandewalde in Silesia. Deprived of his professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg by the Baden Government in 1853 on account of charge of Pantheism, but recalled to Heidelberg in 1872. His principal book is _Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie_ (1852-1903). His _Franz Baco von Verulam_ appeared in 1856, and _Francis Bacon und seine Schule_ made the 10th volume of his _Geschichte_.

{235d} Zeller, Eduard (1814- still living). Theologian and historian of philosophy. Studied at Tubingen and Berlin, became Professor of Theology at Berne, afterwards held chairs successively at Heidelberg and Berlin. His many works include _The Philosophy of Ancient Greece_, _Platonic Studies_ and _Zwingli's Theological System_.

{236a} Bartholomess, Christian (1815-1856). A French philosopher, born at Geiselbronn in Alsace. From 1853 Professor of Philosophy at Strassburg. Died at Nuremberg. Wrote a _Life of Giordano Bruno_, and _Philosophical History of the Prussian Academy_, _particularly under Frederick the Great_, as well as the _Histoire critique des doctrines religieuses de la philosophie moderne_, published in 2 volumes in 1855.

{236b} Madame Guyon (1648-1717) was born at Montargis in France, and her maiden name was Jeanne Marie Bouvieres de la Mothe. She married at 16 years of age Jacques Guyon. Left a widow, she devoted herself to a religious mysticism which raised up endless controversies during the succeeding years. She was compelled to leave Geneva because her doctrines were declared to be heretical. She was imprisoned in the Bastile from 1695 to 1702. Her works are contained in 39 volumes.

{236c} Ritschl, Albrecht (1822-1889). Professor of Theology, born in Berlin, died in Gottingen. Became Professor of Theology in Bonn and later in Gottingen. He wrote many books. His _Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche_ first appeared in 1850.

{236d} Loening, Edgar (1843- still living), was born in Paris. Has held professorial chairs at Strassburg, Dorpat, Rostock, and at Halle. His _Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts_ first appeared in 1878.

{237a} Baur, Ferdinand Christian (1792-1860). Born at Schmiden, near Kannstatt. Held various theological chairs before that of Tubingen, which he occupied from 1826 until his death. He wrote a great number of theological works, of which his _Vorlesungen uber die christliche Dogmengeschichte_ was published in Leipzig in 3 volumes between 1865 and 1867.

{237b} Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715). Born in Perigord in France, and famous alike as a divine and as a man of letters, his _Telemaque_ living in literature. His controversy over Madame Guyon is well known. Louis XIV made him preceptor to his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, and later Archbishop of Cambrai. His _Correspondence_ was published between 1727 and 1729 in 11 volumes.

{237c} Newman, John Henry (1801-1890). A famous Cardinal of the Church of Rome; born in London, educated at Trinity College, Oxford; first Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford; took part in the Tractarian Movement with some of the _Tracts for the Times_. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ appeared in 1864, his _Dream of Gerontius_ in 1865. There is no _Theory of Development_ by Newman. His _Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_ appeared in 1845, and was replied to by the Rev. J. B. Mozley in a volume bearing the title _The Theory of Development_.

{237d} Mozley, James Bowling (1813-1878). A Church of England divine; born at Gainsborough, educated at Oriel College, Oxford; became Vicar of Old Shoreham, Canon of Worcester, and, in 1871, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. His _Oxford University Sermons_ appeared in 1876.

{238a} Schneckenburger, Matthias (1804-1848). A Protestant theologian; born at Thalheim and died in Berne, where he was for a time Professor of Theology at the newly founded University. His _Vergleichende Darstellung des lutherischen und reformierten Lehrbegriffs_ was published in Stuttgart in 2 volumes in 1855.

{238b} Hundeshagen, Karl Bernhard (1810-1872). A Protestant theologian who held a professorship in Berne, later in Heidelberg and finally in Bonn, where he died. His many works included one upon the Conflict between the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Zwinglian Churches. His _Beitrage zur Kirchenverfassungsgeschichte und Kirchenpolitik insbesondere des Protestantismus_ was published at Wiesbaden in 1864 in 1 volume.

{238c} Schweizer, Alexander (1808-1888). A theologian and preacher who studied in Zurich and Berlin. He wrote his _Autobiography_ which was published in Zurich the year after his death. His book, _Die protestantischen Centraldogmen innerhalb der reformierten Kirche_, appeared in Zurich in 2 volumes in 1854 and 1856.

{238d} Gass, Wilhelm (1813-1889). A Protestant theologian; born at Breslau and died in Heidelberg, where he held a theological chair. His best-known book is his _Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik_, published in Berlin between 1854 and 1867 in 4 volumes, and to this Lord Acton doubtless refers.

{238e} Cart, Jacques Louis (1826- probably still living). A Swiss pastor; born in Geneva; the author of many books, of which the one named by Lord Acton is fully entitled, _Histoire du mouvement religieux et ecclesiastique dans le canton de Vaud pendant la premiere moitie du XIXe siecle_. It appeared between 1871 and 1880 in 6 volumes.

{239a} Blondel, David (1590-1655). Born at Chalons-sur-Marne in France; a learned theologian and historian who defended the Protestant position against the Catholics. Was Professor of History at Amsterdam. His _De la primaute de l'Eglise_ appeared in 1641.

{239b} Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis (1614-1675). A French Protestant theologian who enjoyed the consideration of both parties and was approached by Turenne with a view to a reunion of the churches. His position was sustained before the Protestant Academy at Sedan with certain theses published under the title of _Theses Sedanenzes_ in 1683.

{239c} Thiersch, Heinrich Wilhelm Josias (1817-1885). Born in Munich and died in Basle; held for a time a Professorship of Theology in Marburg, then became the principal pastor of the Irvingite Church in Germany, preaching in many cities. He wrote many books. His _Vorlesungen uber Katholizismus und Protestantismus_ appeared first in 1846.

{239d} Mohler, Johann Adam (1796-1838). Born in Igersheim and died in Munich. A Catholic theologian and Professor of Theology at Tubingen. His _Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensatze zwischen den Katholiken und Protestanten_ was first published in Mainz in 1834.

{240a} Scherer, Edmond (1815-1889). A French theologian; born in Paris, died at Versailles. Was for a time in England, then Professor of Exegesis in Geneva. Was for many years a leader of the French Protestant Church. His _Melanges de critique religieuse_ appeared in Paris in 1860.

{240b} Hooker, Richard (1554-1600). Born in Exeter. In 1584 was Rector of Drayton-Beauchamp, near Tring, and the following year became Master of the Temple. In 1591 became Vicar of Boscombe and sub-Dean of Salisbury. His _Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ was published in 1594. In 1595 he removed to Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, where he died.

{240c} Weingarten, Hermann (1834-1892). Protestant ecclesiastical historian, born in Berlin, where in 1868 he became a professor, later held chairs successively at Marberg and Breslau. His book _Die Revolutionskirchen Englands_ appeared in 1868.

{240d} Kliefoth, Theodor Friedrich (1810-1895). A Lutheran theologian; born at Kirchow in Mecklenburg, and died at Schwerin, where he was for a time instructor to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and held various offices in connexion with that state. He wrote many theological works. His _Acht Bucher von der Kirche_ was published at Schwerin in 1 volume in 1854.

{240e} Laurent, Francois (1810-1887). Born in Luxemburg and died in Gent, where he long held a professorship. His principal work, _Etudes sur l'histoire de l'humanite_, _Histoire du droit des gens_ was published in Brussels in 18 volumes between 1860 and 1870.

{241a} Ferrari, Guiseppe (1812-1876) was born in Milan, and died in Rome. Achieved fame as a philosophical historian. Held a chair at Turin and afterwards at Milan. As member of the Parliament of Piedmont he was an opponent of Cavour's policy of a United Italy. His principal book is entitled _Histoire des revolutions de l'Italie_, _ou Guelfes et Gibelins_, published in Paris in four volumes between 1856 and 1858.

{241b} Lange, Friedrich Albert (1828-1875). Philosopher and economic writer, born at Wald bei Solingen, died at Marburg. Held a professorial chair at Zurich and later at Marburg. His most famous book, the _Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedentung in der Gegenwart_, first appeared in 1866. It was published in England in 1878- 81 by Trubner in three volumes.

{241c} Guicciardini, Francesco (1483-1540), the Italian historian and statesman, was born at Florence. Undertook in 1512 an embassy from Florence to the Court of Ferdinand the Catholic, and learned diplomacy in Spain. In 1515 he entered the service of Pope Leo X. His principal book is his _History of Italy_. The _Istoria d'Italia_ appeared in Florence in ten volumes between 1561 and 1564. His _Recordi Politici_ consists of some 400 aphorisms on political and social topics and has been described by an Italian critic as "Italian corruption codified and elevated to a rule of life."

{241d} Duperron, Jacques Davy (1556-1618), a Cardinal of the Church, born at Saint Lo. He was a Court preacher under Henry III of France and denounced Elizabeth of England in a funeral sermon on Mary Stuart. It is told of him that he once demonstrated before the king the existence of God, and being complimented upon his irrefutable arguments, replied that he was prepared to bring equally good arguments to prove that God did not exist. He became Bishop of Evreux in 1591.

{242a} Richelieu, Cardinal--(Armand-Jean Du Plessis)--(1585-1642). The famous minister of Louis XIII; born in Paris, of a noble family of Poitou. Was made Bishop of Lucon by Henry IV at the age of twenty-two. Became Almoner to Marie de Medici, the Regent of France. Was elected a Cardinal in 1622. He wrote many books, including theological works, tragedies, and his own Memoirs. The authenticity of his _Testament politique_ was disputed by Voltaire.

{242b} Harrington, James (1611-1677) was born at Upton, Northamptonshire; was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He travelled on the Continent, but was back in England at the time of the Civil War, in which, however, he took no part. He published his _Oceana_ in 1656. He is buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, next to the tomb of Sir Walter Raleigh. His _Writings_ in an edition issued in 1737 by Millar contained twenty separate treatises in addition to _Oceana_, but concerned with that book.

{242c} Mignet, Francois Auguste Marie (1796-1884). The historian; was born at Aix and died in Paris. Published his _History of the French Revolution_ in 1824. His _Negociations relatives a la succession d'Espagne_ appeared in 4 volumes between 1836 and 1842. He also wrote a _Life of Franklin_, a _History of Mary Stuart_, and many other works.

{243a} Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), the famous writer, was born in Geneva and died at Ermenonville. Much of his life story has been told in his incomparable _Confessions_. In 1759 he published _Nouvelle Heloise_; in 1762, _L'Emile ou de l'Education_. His _Considerations sur la Pologne_ was written by Rousseau in 1769 in response to an application to apply his own theories to a scheme for the renovation of the government of Poland, in which land anarchy was then at its height. Mr. John Morley (_Rousseau_, Vol. II) dismisses the pamphlet with a contemptuous line.