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history of the Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject. Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm than they feel. They admire one's works without exception-they are all absolutely charming '—but they would be placed in a position of great embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as a matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because she really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, she was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so he got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It had been the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' &c. The thought of having smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure, be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted to cut the pages even of the first volume. But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly popular, and has been long before the public, they have two methods of discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as worked out,' and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you to-day, will relegate you to your proper position tomorrow. If one were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show that popular authors are not worked out,' but only have the appearance of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge of the world are always on the increase.

As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect

for the opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible greatgreat-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present will be their past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of to-day, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of tomorrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make themselves even more ridiculous than their predecessors.

JAMES PAYN.

MOZLEY'S ESSAYS, HISTORICAL AND

THEOLOGICAL.

Ir a critic has ground for mistrusting his own impartiality, he had better avow it at once, that his readers may know what his opinion is worth. I begin therefore by saying that Dr. Mozley was for a short time my pupil at Oxford; that he was, till his death, my dear and valued friend; and that for many years, during which most of these biographical sketches were written, our friendship was not only warm, but most intimate, because we were anxiously working together, with the utmost agreement of opinion, on objects which we both held to be of the highest importance. My judgment of his compositions may therefore be biassed. But, on the other hand, I have the advantage, though our courses of life led us apart, of an early acquaintance with a character not likely to have changed, and with a promise which his friends always understood and consider to have been fulfilled.

Among Dr. Mozley's youthful characteristics were simplicity of habits, warm but undemonstrative affections, sincerity of thought, an almost stern purity of mind, carelessness of worldly advancement or distinction, and a deliberate desire to attach himself to a worthy object of life. He soon felt that thinking and writing were his vocation; and he found a career in the service of the Anglican Church, and guides in the leaders of what was called the Oxford movement, with whom circumstances at once made him intimate. To an unmistakable independence of thought he joined a cordial and natural recognition of all those claims for respect, or even provisional submission of belief, which arise from intellect, age, moral character, or social relation. And so under these leaders he fairly enrolled himself as pupil and soldier. He was fond of his friends and of society, conscious of his own powers, without valuing himself on them, and ready and liberal in his appreciation of others. But partly from the modesty of a man who had before him a high standard of excellence, partly because he could not easily do himself justice in spoken words, partly because it was a kind of serious amusement to him to observe and ponder, he did not talk much in

company. If he spoke, he seemed to speak because there was something which ought to be said, and nobody else to say it; expressing himself in short or even abrupt sentences and well-chosen words, which showed even a critical or eager interest in what was going on; but, when this was done, falling back into his normal state of amused or inquiring attention, like a man who has discharged a duty and is glad to have done with it. He was not an artist or a writer of poems, but he had a keen and somewhat analytical appreciation of what was beautiful to the eye or ear, whether severe or florid, and his writings show that his sense of things was as vigorous in point of humour and poetry as in point of philosophy. Pomp he respectfully appreciated, as on proper occasions a fitting instrument for the adornment of truth, and he was fully aware that a battle of principle may occasionally have to be fought on a point of detail. But he was quite superior to the triviality which agitates itself about prettinesses, the pomposity which feels itself exalted by being part of a ceremonial, or the captiousness which finds occasion of petty quarrel. Of cant or pretentiousness he was intolerant, of unction incapable perhaps to a fault, so that those who did not know him might imagine him dry. He had not the special excellences or the defects of a great preacher, and, with all his power of thought and imagery, could scarcely, I think, have become one, even had his delivery been better than it was. He was wholly genuine-in his friendships, his arguments, his measurement of things, and in his devotion to the Church of England-not an imagination of his own mind nor exactly the Church as it is, but a distinct historical community, having, like his country, its defects and its merits, and, in spite of those defects, capable of greatness and goodness on the basis supplied by its formularies and great divines. With a lively discrimination of characters and situations, he had not the flexibility of address, the resource, the practical energy, or the taste for active movement which are required for a leader. His line was thought; and, in choosing theology as the object of that thought, he approached it on its philosophical side. The details of doctrine, the scholarship, the archæology, or the textual interpretation of Scripture might interest, but did not detain him. Appreciating the value of minutiæ, he had no taste for them. He was always ambitious of a view,' as it was called-an available principle under the light of which minutiae fell into their places as of course-and spared no thought or reading in attaining it. Thus he found himself particularly at home in tracing the bearing of Scriptural teaching on the laws of human nature or the constitution of the world, or in determining the connection between a particular doctrine and the moral temperament or necessity to which it appealed, or out of which it sprang. It was a pleasure to him to penetrate-whether states of things, states of mind, forms of character, or courses of argument; and in this he was patient of labour and of suspense. But

once satisfied he was ready, as the phrase is, to go off at score. No one liked better to give his pen a gallop. No one had greater power of bringing home to a reader that what is obvious is obvious-a matter not always so easy as it may be thought-no one greater richness of development and illustration. He agreed apparently with Lord Bacon that a broad and true view should bear down objections by its mere completeness and momentum, and was sometimes overconfident in the force of a peremptory' pooh-pooh.' He could not fence with an argument, but he could ignore it, and sometimes dismissed as irrelevant or absurd considerations which had a real though not conclusive weight, and deserved to be taken into account. Hence sometimes a reader, though carried forwards by the force and clearness of his statement, does not feel sure that the whole is there. I remember a clever feminine observation on one of the biographies now reprinted, that it was as if a strong man seized you by your two hands and ran you downhill whether you would or no.'

In this respect his mind was remarkably constituted. To an idea of limited extent-a platitude if you like-or a just and appropriate observation which he fathomed at a glance, he could at once give a profuse and vigorous expression, could develope, illustrate, and enforce it with the utmost force and vivacity, almost off hand. But if he was called upon to search out what was subtle, doubtful, or involved, or what, clear in itself, had been obscured by the hardy credulity of doubt, and therefore had to be hunted back into what was clearer than clear, he was embarrassed by his fastidious desire to touch the true bottom, and when there to grasp firmly the cardinal truth with a full apprehension of its surroundings. The sense of half knowledge only paralysed him. He had no tincture of that aimable légèreté qui fait prononcer sur ce qu'on ignore.' If he understood a matter wholly or in part, he could write on that whole or part with force and richness. But if he had only a confused and inchoate understanding of it, he could not write at all. The incapacity was partly a moral one. A proud disgust at 'cram' or make-believe made him incapable of that adroit use of smattering which plays so much part in the examinations of second-rate men, and concurred perhaps with his unfortunate choice of a tutor in preventing his attaining high university distinction.

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Thus it happened that, as a young man, his powers were in curious contrast with themselves. I have known him spend hours over a few lines when it was a question of finished thought, or throw off a column of spirited writing almost without stopping when it was merely a question of enforcing a commonplace but pertinent observation. His reiteration, sometimes excessive, was often most powerful. It is said of the late Duke of Wellington that when he wished a point to be attended to, he simply repeated it over and over again. This, my Lords, is a very foolish business-a very foolish business. VOL. V.-No. 28.

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