Avignon, where the tomb of his wife was made.

"There's a great spirit gone," was the word of all men. A loftier and pourer soul, more truly devoted to the quest of the truth, had not mingled in the worldly affairs of our time. There were clear evidences in the later writings of Mr. Mill, published after his death, that he had been turning toward a different point in quest of the truth from that on which early training and long habit had formerly fixed his mind. His influence over the thought and the culture of his day was immense. Time has even already begun to show it in some decay; but most of Mr. Mill's writings may safely be regarded as the possession of all the future, and he has left an example of candor in investigation and fearless moral purpose in action such as might well leaven even the most thoughtless and cynical generation. A sudden accident, the stumble of a horse, brought to a close, on July 19th, the career of the Bishop of Winchester, the many-sided, energetic, eloquent Samuel Wiberforce. He had tried to succeed in everthing, and he went near success. He tried to know everybody and understand everybody's way of looking at every question. He was a great pulpit and parliamentary orator, a great bishop, a wit, a scholar, an accomplished man of the world. In a different and more honorable sense than that conveyed in Dryden's famous line, he "was everything by starts; but he was a good man and a good minister always. On the very day after the death of the Bishop of Winchester died Lord Westbury, who had been Lord Chancellor, a man of great ability, unsurpassed as a lawyer in his time, endowed with as bitter a tongue and as vitriolic a wit as ever cursed their possessor. Lord Westbury was a failure in spite of all his gifts, partly because of a certain want of moral elevation in his nature. It is only justice to his memory to say that he was in many ways the victim of the errors of scme to whom his affections made him too lenico. From one cause and another the close of his career

became but a heap of ruins. The deaths of Sir Edwin Landseer, the painter, Sir Henry Holland, the famous physician and traveller, whose patients and personal friends were emperors, kings, presidents, and prime ministers, and of Professor Sedgwick, the geologist, ought to be mentioned. Nor must we omit from our death-roll the name of Dr. Lushington, who, in addition to his own personal distinction, is likely to be remembered as the depositary of a secret confided to him in an earlier generation by Lady Byron, the secret of the charge she had to make against her husband. The whole story was revived before Dr. Lushington's death by a painful controversy, but he refused even by a yes or no to reveal Lady Byron's confidence.

The year which saw so many deaths was a trying time for the Liberal Government. The session of that year would in any case have brought them over what may be called the grand climacteric of the Parliament. The novelty of the reforming administration was well-nigh worn off, and there was yet some work which Mr. Gladstone was pledged to do. Here and there, when it happened that the death or retirement of a member of Parliament gave an opportunity for a new election, it seemed of late to happen that the election went generally against the Government. The Conservatives. were plucking up a spirit everywhere, and were looking closely after their organization. Mr. Disraeli himself had taken to going round the couutry, doing what would be cal led in America stump oratory, and doing it remarkably well. In the Crystal Palace of London, in the Free Trade Hall and the Pomona Gardens of Manchester, in the Conservative Association of Glasgow, and in other places, he had addressed great assemblages and denounced and ridiculed the Liberal Government. In the Manchester Free Trade Hall he made use of a remarkably happy expression. His rivals had entered into office, he said, with a policy of violence, of sacrilege, and of confiscation, and now having done

their work they sat in a row on the treasury benches, reminding him as he gazed across the table at them, "of a range of extinct volcanoes." The Government had been unlucky in the naval department; some of their ships had met with fatal accidents; and it was complained that there was defective organization and imperfect inspection. In one of his speeches, Mr. Disraeli had spoken of a new difficulty in Irish politics and a new form of agitation that had arisen in Ireland. The Home Rule organization had sprung suddenly into existence.

The Home Rule agitation came in its first organized form, mainly from the inspiration of Irish Protestants. The disestablishment of the Church had filled most of the Protestants of Ireland with hatred of Mr. Gladstone, and distrust of the Imperial Parliament and English parties. It was therefore thought by some of them that the time had come when Irishmen of all sects and parties had better trust to themselves and to their united efforts than to any English minister, Parliament, or party. Partly in a petulant mood, partly in despondency, partly out of genuine partriotic impulse, some of the Irish Protestants set going the movement for Home Rule. But although the actual movement came into being in that way, the desire for a native Parliament had always lived among large classes of the Irish people. Attempts were always being made to construct something like a regular organization with such an object. The process of pacification was going on but slowly. It could only be slow in any case; the affects of centuries of bad legislation could not by any human possibility be effaced by two or three years of better government. But there were many Irishmen who, themselves patient and moderate, saw with distinctness that the feeling of disaffection, or at least of discontent, among the Irish people was not to be charmed away even by such measures as the disestablishment of the Irish Church. They saw what English statesmen would not or could not see, that

the one strong feeling in the breast of a large proportion of the population of Ireland was dislike to the rule of an English Parliament. The national sentiment, rightly or wrongly, for good or ill, had grown so powerful that it could not be overcome by mere concessions in this or that detail of legislation. These Irishmen of moderate views felt convinced that there were only two alternatives before England; either she must give back to Ireland some form of national Parliament, or she must go on putting down rebellion after rebellion, and dealing with Ireland as Russia had dealt with Poland. They therefore welcomed the Home Rule movement, and conscientiously believed that it would open the way to a genuine reconciliation between England and Ireland on conditions of fair copartnership. The author of this history is, for obvious reasons, not inclined to discuss here the merits of the Home Rule demand. But he desires to put it on historical record that those who were chiefly concerned in promoting that movement were filled with the conviction that the principle of Home Rule contained the solution of the great problem of government which unsolved had so long divided England and Ireland, and offered a means of complete reconciliation between the two countries.

Several Irish elections took place about the time when the Home Rule movement had been fairly started. They were fought out on the question for or against Home Rule, and the Home Rulers were successful. The leadership of the new party came almost, as a matter of course, into the hands of Mr. Butt, who returned to Parliament after a considerable time of exile from political life. Mr. Butt was a man of great ability, legal knowledge, and historical culture. He had begun life as a Conservative and an opponent of O'Connell. He had become one of the orators of the shortlived attempt at a Protectionist reaction in England. He was taken up by the leading Protectionists. who were them. selves somewhat deficient in intellect and eloquence, and

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who could not induce men like Mr. Disraeli to trouble themselves any more about the lost cause. Mr. Butt was a lawyer of great skill and success in his profession; as an advocate he had for years not a rival at the Irish bar. had taken part in the defence of Smith O'Brien and Meagher at Clonmel, in 1848; and when the Fenian movements broke out, he undertook the defence of many Fenian prisoners. He became gradually drawn away from Conservatism and brought round to Nationalism. For some reason or other the Conservative chiefs had neglected him. There is extant a letter from a once conspicuous and clever unofficial Conservative, in which, among other pieces of advice to a leader of the party, he recommends him to " buy Butt." The frank cynicism of the advice was a proof that the writer did not understand Mr. Butt. It is certain that Mr. Butt was not a prudent man, and that he did not manage his private affairs well. There can be no doubt that he often fell into embarrassments which might have made observers think he would have welcomed any means of extrication; but it is certain that he was politically honest even to chivalrous forgetfulness of his own most legitimate interests. Perhaps the neglect of the Conservative chiefs came from their observation of the fact that Mr. Butt was gradually passing over from their side; perhaps it was due to other and personal causes. Mr. Butt dropped entirely out of public life for a while; and when he reappeared, it was as the leader of the new Home Rule movement. There was not then in Irish politics any man who could pretend to be his rival. He was a speaker at once powerful and plausible; he had a thorough knowledge of the constitutional history and the technical procedures of Parliament, and he could talk to an Irish monster meeting with vivacity and energy. Almost in a moment a regular Home Rule party was set up in the House of Commons. Popular Irish members who had been elected previous to the organization of the movement gave