We sincerely regret to record the death on Monday, at
Oxford, of Mr. Walter Pater, the author of "Marius," as well as several other books of great distinction, written in very luminous and melodious English, and of ten with no little beauty and evidence of considerable learning. Mr. Pater was once the head of the /Esthetic School, and in his earlier hooks there was no doubt a morbid and rather artificial vein of luxurious self-consciousness, but latterly that element had dwindled or indeed vanished from his writings, and yet he had not lost the art of discerning and vindicating the vital connection between truth and beauty. The book on Plato and Platonism which we noticed last year, seemed to us full of subtle and original insight. Mr. Pater was born in 1839, and died, there- fore, in the fullness of his powers. He had suffered from rheumatism and pleurisy, and the heart had evidently been weakened. He fainted just after leaving his room on Mon- day, and died immediately afterwards. He exerted a great charm over his pupils, and will be much missed at Brasenose, where he held a fellowship, and was Lecturer and Dean at the time of his death.
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