A MEMOIR OF W. E. H. LECKY.*

IT would not be easy to praise too highly the skill and the unerring taste with which Mrs. Lecky has brought together the none too numerous documents of her distinguished husband's career. When one reflects on the pretentious and lengthy volumes about persons of no particular account, one is inclined to say that Mrs. Lecky might have apologised for publishing so short a book, instead of apologising, as she does, for publishing one at all. Lecky was an historian for history's sake ; he bad no prejudices, and brought to bear on every issue the impartiality of a just and temperate mind ; he had no tricks for winning such a popularity as he deserved, and (particularly late in his life when he became a Member of Parliament) he could be pushed aside only too easily, by men who were infinitely his inferiors in intellect and experience, in the struggle to gain the public ear. But his work will last when much else is forgotten. He had something of Burke's method of fitting general principles to particular cases—he was indeed, as Lord Morley is, a very devout but discerning disciple of Burke—and probably no one could read very far in any one of his books without coming, as one does continually in Burke, on a passage which strikes into the mind like the sun's rays into a dim room, clarifying and revealing. Lecky, with characteristic shyness, had a dislike of autobiography, and he obviously never wrote a letter in his life with the notion that it might be reproduced. He kept no diary, and only the dates of his* whereabouts at particular times, which were entered with regularity in almanacs, have guided Mrs. Lecky in her chronology. The letters which Mrs. Lecky has thought it right to publish are a key to his mind and not his heart, and yet it is impossible to read them without discovering everywhere proofs of his affectionate loyalty to his friends. In many ways he was ideally placed to cultivate his tastes; be had enough money to roam about Europe when other young men who were his contemporaries at Trinity College, Dublin, had entered upon the severe struggle for a livelihood. He read omnivorously, and he had established his reputation as a philosophic historian when he was little over thirty years old. One cannot help thinking of Gibbon, who also could afford leisure, • I Memoir of the Right Hen. William Eduard Hartpole Lecky, M.P., O.M. kL.D.JD.O.L., Litt.D. By his Wife. London : Longman,' mid Co. [12s. 6d. net.J and had no sooner conceived the idea of his history than be began serenely and without any serious distractions to write

it. Thus Lecky wasted little time in discovering his métier. although he had gone to College with the idea of taking Orders, and while at College had discovered that nothing interested him so much as oratory. Fortunately oratory is not an occupation in life. Readers of his early work may have noticed the fullness, resonance, and over-elaboration of his sentences, which bear witness to his tastes of those days: One can imagine him dissatisfied with all writing that was not fit for declamation.

At Trinity College be won the Gold Medal which was awarded annually for eloquence at the meetings of the Historical Society:— .

"‘ On one evening of that session,' writes Judge Snagge, ho rose to his feet in the debate and, to the amazement of us all, poured forth a stream of mellifluous and finished eloquence that carried all before it. It was meteoric. It was not a speech, it was a recited essay, but it raised the standard of debating rhetoric enormously."

That was Lecky's first speech. It was a familiar paradox, betraying itself in his temperament, that in youth he admired most those qualities which Nature had withheld from him. The facile aplomb of a ready speaker seemed to him a wonderful gift. He used to go to hear popular preachers and political speakers. Some of them may have won their popularity legitimately, but the same can hardly be said of Whiteside. What a curious revelation of Lecky's own longings and instincts, reproved by his critical faculty, is this remark to a friend ! " 'Whiteside talked splendid nonsense. He is indeed a most superb humbug, and I have an immense admiration for him." The following extract from a letter written at Florence in 1860 lights up the same side of Lecky's character :— " At Milan I came in for Ristori, who is now, I suppose, at Paris, and whom I admire most intensely. She is not, I think, at all pathetic ; but for power, for passion, for transition from one feeling to another, and for representing the simultaneous working of opposite passions, I never saw anyone approaching her. I only saw her twice—not enough to drink in the full spirit of her powers—but she has been haunting me ever since. There is scarcely anything that I admire so much as a really great actor, scarcely anything I should so like to be."

The eloquence—the unfailing choice of the snot juste—,was native in Lecky, but he had none of the arts of the speaker, for he was uncertain or awkward in gesture, and altogether disliked standing up in public and making himself the centre of attention.

Here is another of the significant and interesting touches in which Mrs. Lecky's book abounds :—

" During the travelling in Spain he used sometimes not to speak to anyone for days, but solitude never made him feel lonely or depressed; indeed, he had loved it from boyhood, and acquired so much the habit of it that it remained for him a necessity through life to spend several hours of the day alone ; and he never could do any real work unless he was absolutely un- disturbed."

How unlike Sir Walter Scott, who could write serenely as though he were only copying from one book to another while children played and shouted round his desk I In 1864 Lecky wrote from Nimes :—

"To say the truth, I have been absorbing oceans of political economy, and have got so dreadfully shocked and frightened by all its denunciations of unproductive consumers' and luxury' and all the rest of it that I feel perfectly disreputable whenever I meet anyone I know who is in a profession, and shrink with perfect horror from all who regard me as an idler. . . . So I mean to publish a long book with my name. Adam Smith, indeed, considers authors in the unproductive classes, but J. B. Say and most modern economists say they are 'immaterial producers,' so I suppose when known to belong to that class I shall be able without too much shame and trepidation to encounter the legal

cx- historicals of the Four Courts."

Lecky's earliest works, apart from his verse, which was never distinguished, were Religious Tendencies of the Age and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland ; the second fell unexpectedly flat at the time of its anonymous publication, but became famous and widely quoted by both sides in the Home-rule controversy. The first of his books to succeed directly it was published was perhaps the first for which afterwards he would have wished such a success,—the remark- able History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe. The subject led naturally and logically to an investigation of morals, and the History of European Morals was the result. The History of Rationalism brought Lecky . Countless friends and admirers.. As Milman said, it was "the book that was, wanted." Of course it was misunderstood by reason of its very _ but it ;was seriously misunderstood by no intelli- gent reader, and it was not merely, a guide and a corrective, but a 'Positive salving of faith for many.. Lecky could not complain, as Matthew Arnold did, that, while his Literature and Dogma was meant to help people to, aPpreciate the Bible, it was actually ;hidden away from young and curious eyes as though it knelled the death of religion. As for the History of European Morals, it was a. book of the hour, and the Saturday BVrieze had, as amusing description of the philosophical discussions which were going on at every dinner- table between intuitional young ladies and utilitarian young gentlemen. Lecky, of course, was an intuitive philosopher; henever faltered in his conviction that man's moral faculty Came not from his 'experience of the tendency of actions, but Wasan Original iniPlantation. Carlyle, speaking to Lecky of the hullabaloo raised by the History of European Morals, exclaimed; "The chief meaning of fame seems to be that you baire if1l the.owls; of the community beating at your windows." Many, readers in whose way philosophy does not generally come have ;had; reason to bless the name of Lecky for that lucid introduction tolis History of European Morals, which was printed separately under the title of A Survey of English

Nthics, . •

We shall not write here of the History of the _Eighteenth Century, or of Democracy and liberty. It is juster to the very proper charaCter of this Memoir to dwell not upon Lecky's lest-known services to literature, but on the more intimate-side of his Itere is a confession of his thoughts on literary style " I have always cared much for style, and have endeavoured to improve my own by reading a great deal of the best English and French prose. In wilting, as in music, much of the perfection of style is a: question of ear; but much also depends on the ideal the Writer sets before 'himself. He ought, I think, to aim at the greatest possible simplicity and accuracy of expression, at vivid- ness and force, at condensation. The last two heads will usually be found to blend ; for condensation, when it is not attained at the Sacrifice of clearnesir, is the great secret of force. I should say, froth my OWn'experitmee, that most improvements of style are of the nature either of condensation or of increased accuracy and delicacy of distinction."

In 1873 Lecky wrote. to his close friend, Mr. Arthur Booth, the ;following remarks on Herbert Spencer I have been seeing rather more lately than I have done before of Herbert Spencer, who (with Huxley) dined with ua a short time ago, and whim I, think very curious and interesting, though Very wrong=headed: He was giving such a multitude of the.most ingenious scientific reasons to show that modern painting is much better than that of the time of Raphael, that modern sculpture is tuna; better than; that,of the Greeks, that Shakespeare could have Written so ,much better had his compositions been based upon an accurate knowledge ef. psychology. What to me is most amazing about him is that he says there is, and for mazy years past has been, something the matter with his brain, and that he can never read more than one hour at a time or work altogether more than three in the day. He has written all his books in this state. They have al been tlictated; his reading is chiefly done by- secretaries, and he spends much of his afternoon playing billiards at the 4.tiththeuzu,7because he says he must find something to do to while away the time."

Again Lecky wrote about Herbert Spencer In the evening I dined quietly at the Atheneum with Herbert Spencer. . . . We talked much about style in writing, he being strong about the thielessuess of knowing the derivation of words; abopt the bad writing of Addison, about the especial atrocity of Micaelay, whose style resembles low organisations, being a per- petual repetition. Of similar parts. There are savages,' &c."

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Leaky's trenchant-criticism of Froude's book, The English it Ireland, was Written under a deep sense of duty. He greatly adinired and liked Fronde, and it was as he explains, a pain and sorrow to him to feel compelled to write as he did. He wrote to ?dr. Xi.os)th on this subject :—

_ , . for the, Froude.controversy, it has been as disagreeable to

xae asailYthing could well be, and I am perfectly aware that it impairs theartititic character of my book. But Froude's book is the only ronaideralitehook en Irish history read in 'England. It is;the source of nearly. everything on Irish history that has of late years been written here and, I believe, in. America. It is written with very great poWer, and its single' object is to blast the character of the people, representing them as hopelessly, irredeem- ably bad, justifying every past act of oppression, and trying to arouse to theutthost, sectarian passions both against and among them. I believe no one else in Ireland could do anything very eonsiderale ta:thipply an antidote, for I happen to have the ear of the:English public, and I am one of the veryfew persons in Ireland who have the patience to go through the original documents and who are not (I hoPe at least) under the influence, some overpowering craze. I have always hoped to got through mjr literary life without a quarrel, but I believe that_ in 4uitting on record my views-about Kr,Troude's book and the ground. ou which those views are based I, am doing some real service to history, te the cause of truth, and to the reputation of Ireland. Nothing I have ever written has been so painful to me to write, and no one could wish more than I do, as a general rule, to keep history clear of personal controversy."

We must quote no more, but we wish that many, readers may have the same pleasure that we have had in. reading this charming Memoir. We believe that Lecky will rise:to a still higher place in estimation among the interpreters of his own day as time passes. At the end of his life he was judged 00 commonly as a Member of Parliament. He entered Parlia- ment with confessed reluctance, and, having allowed his early liking for oratory to grow dull through want of use, he acted rather as though he remembered the exclamation of Gibbon in the same circumstances : " The great speakers fill me with despair; the bad ones with terror."