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 minutia, 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.

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. 3 X

I say, my Lords, this is a very foolish business.' This, it is plain, was sometimes Dr. Mozley's conception of what had to be done. But, not having the Duke of Wellington's weight of character at his back, he was obliged to give his repetitions a faint diversity of clothing, and the result was curious. Some of his shorter compositions were like pieces of music of which the subject never leaves the ear, but, without anything that can be called a variation, is treated with a variety of key or time or instrumentation which keeps it ever fresh and lively.

For a long time it appeared that the two powers-that of patient thought and that of popular expression-would never combine; and in the present volumes the earlier essays on the heroes of the seventeenth century, though quite equal in power to any of his minor works, are in some respects youthful. Their substantial justice will of course be diversely judged of by diverse readers while the spirit of the Cavalier or Roundhead survives. But those who most admire the vigour, and in the main uphold the justice, of his, onset, must yet admit that he occasionally refuses to take notice of some prominent characteristics of history, and also, by an unchastised exaggeration of style, has exposed himself to the same kind of criticism which he applies without mercy to Mr. Carlyle. Age, however, and experience corrected these defects, and in some of his later works, thought, imagination, and language are brought into full harmony, and the results of careful and original thought are expressed with a life and force which leave nothing to desire.

The two volumes now published are composed of biographical, theological, and philosophical essays; the biographical being the earliest, and the philosophical the latest written. I propose to select a few extracts, so arranged as to make under each head something of a -coherent whole. As, however, the biographies compose about twothirds of the present publication, and as his theological and philosophical essays would be more properly treated in connection with his larger works, I wish principally to exhibit him as a portrait painter, in which character he now appears first to the world.

There is no reason for denying that he writes from beginning to end as a soldier of the English Church. He undertakes the task of valuing characters generally because it is congenial-particularly because his cause requires that certain personages should be valued aright. But a man does not pervert truth because he has a purpose in his choice of a subject. And when Dr. Mozley is unfair or one-sided-which he sometimes is—it is not, I think, due to a party desire to make the best or worst of a case, but to a genuine moral sympathy or antipathy, heightened, it may be, by the religious prepossessions to which that sympathy or antipathy has given rise, but at bottom personal and not partisan.

The energy of his historical style is most conspicuous in his