help perceiving the repetition in the assailant of the very views he is so firmly inveighing against.

It is curious to remark, however, that the priesthood of scepticism is on the whole much less harsh in their treatment of their Catholic rivals than of the Protestants. The latter are more near them, perhaps more like them; they cannot burn any more than their accusers ever do, but both can curse, and the new artists have on the whole the best of it in this rivalry, for the old clericals are restrained by public opinion, and a sense that cursing is now fully recognised to be inconsistent with Christianity, whereas the new are joyfully free of all bonds, and can do what they like, and snap their fingers at Bishops and Presbyterians alike. Scotland, for example, far more than Spain evokes in Buckle this spirit of cursing. His very voice trembles as he pours forth with hysterical solemnity his accusations against a country, which, with all its faults, has borne a fair character, and maintained its credit, and never broken out into painting and sculpture as superstitious countries used to do. It is almost inconceivable, or would be had we not so many instances, how a man possessing in a high degree the reasoning faculty, and surrounded by books, even though ignoring life, should be able to maintain his own idea, formed, no doubt, in accordance with his peculiar doctrines as to what such a country ought to be in the face of fact and reality, which a twelve hours' journey would at any time have revealed to him. In the face of all that anecdotal history of Scotland, which we are sorry to say displays a great deal more jovial profanity than sacerdotalism, and of all the obstreperous rural gaiety which shows through the poetry of Burns and many lesser indices of popular feeling, this philosophical thinker and reader of three volumes a day solemnly asserts that not even the brilliant Scotch literature of the eighteenth century could touch or modify the slavish superstition in which the country was plunged. The aversion to innocent gaiety, the sour and fanatical spirits' engendered by those repulsive and horrible notions advocated by the Scotch clergy and sanctioned by the Scotch people '-Habakkuk Mucklewrath was rampant in the unfortunate country, quite unmoved by David Hume or Adam Smith, still less by Walter Scott and Robert Burns. But these two names were not, we suppose, known in Mr. Buckle's library, as they certainly are not referred to. Our brother-contributor the accomplished 'Shirley' gave to the readers of Fraser' in last month's number a sketch of a Scotch minister of the period which we fear would not impress those readers much with any idea of strait-laced views, either theological or moral. Scotland, as a matter of fact, was neither pious nor intolerant in those days when religion was moderate,' when the Edinburgh lawyers played high jinks, and the little Scotch towns were full of the rude, hard-drinking, and utterly irreverent cleverness of men such as those who first brought Burns out of the

Scotland that she should have been full of the rude free-thinking of the French Revolution period, or perhaps even that her clergy should have contributed so largely to the popular répertoire of fun and humour. But all this exuberant store of national character and life, so easily attainable by anybody who will study it, so entirely known to all who are acquainted with the country, makes the fancy-picture of Mr. Buckle too ludicrous even for serious discussion. It is, we suppose, an example of what strange inventions the philosophical historian is capable who forms his idea of an existing race according to what he considers the natural sequence and regularity of those laws which determine history, without taking the trouble either to examine it personally or cast a single glance upon the real records of its life.

When we leave this world of philosophisings and those curious galvanic inventions of theory which are so different from the inventions of the imagination, and return to the real man-so much as there was of him-we find that the melancholy climax of poor Buckle's life had happened between these two volumes of his history. He had by this time attained his thirty-sixth year, that time of complete maturity for which Dante has furnished everybody with so ready a description. In the midst of the journey of his life he too had to enter into a passage which was dark and bitter. He lost his mother, love for whom formed almost the sole ideal of his life. And his sorrow came just as the power he had so longed for was attained, and spoilt it for him, and turned his triumph into mourning. How strange a twilight life must that have been which owed its sole point of light to this natural loss, and knew no brightness save in the fading smile of the mother! The helplessness of the child, and its dismayed contemplation of the lonely world around it (in which, however, it will find so many alleviations), have a singular effect upon us when we meet its helpless gaze in the eyes of a matured and full-grown man. But, such as it is, this is the philosopher's sole story of the affections. Mrs. Buckle lived to see his first volume published, and all the fame it brought; but the introduction of her fading figure, sick and worn out, yet holding on to life till she should see the result of her son's labours, is by far the most striking portion of Buckle's biography. Surely God will let me live to see Henry's book,' she said. She had taken the responsibility upon herself of the strange training which, according to all that we are told, saved his. life as a child, and which it must have been doubly important to her to see justified by success; at last the prayer was heard, and she lived to see the work, which she had followed through step by step of its progress as if it had been her son's child, fairly launched upon the world with a tender dedication to herself, which half killed her with the tender sweetness of it when it was put into her hands-the only words, Miss Shirreff tells us, for which she was unprepared. We may add that this affecting picture is entirely the contribution of Miss Shirreff, and is quoted in Mr. Huth's large book from the brief

6

memoir prefixed by Miss Helen Taylor to her collection of Buckle's miscellaneous works, and published in 1872.1

Next to Miss Shirreff's sketch, which is very short, the most human portion of the narrative is in the chapter by Mrs. Huth, where we have really a lively and lifelike picture of the prim philosopher. Perhaps because of his devotion to his mother, perhaps because of his partly feminine nature, he would seem always to have been most at home and understood by women. And there is a gentle laugh suppressed in this lady's story which gives us a very good idea of the aspect of the great man, half pope, half pedagogue, never weary of teaching nor unprovided with an explanation, who felt it only natural that he should be referred to for information on all subjects, and was bon prince, fully recognising that it was his mission to furnish knowledge to all that asked. Mrs. Huth describes their early intercourse as follows::

I kept a notebook, from which I was prepared categorically to question him whenever I knew he was coming; and the kindness, patience, care, and sympathy with which he answered greatly astonished me. It was a rule with him never to pay more than one visit a day among his friendson acquaintances he only left cards—and his visits, when they happened to be to me, generally lasted about twenty minutes.

But if on any subject on which we happened to be talking I was not yet quite clear, he went on combating my arguments point by point, and never moved from his chair until he had made it perfectly plain to me. But no sooner had I grasped it than he took up his hat, said goodbye, and hurriedly left.

This sketch of the universal instructor, prepared at a moment's notice to expound any subject at any time, not only laying down the law but condescending to make everything plain to the gracious disciple whose interest was as much about himself as the subject he talked of, and who made her own little curious half-amused obervations while she allowed herself to be convinced, is very entertaining. The absolute gravity of the teacher, who only wanted that turn of the handle conveyed in the asking of a question to flow forth in mild round strains of knowledge, irrigating every corner of the domain before him; and the attentive pupil, somewhat maliciosa, not so reverential but that she could make little private notes of his expectant entrance, his measured visit, and hurried departure when his object had been fulfilled, and as much instruction conveyed as was desirable for the moment, appear before us like a picture. We may be sure that he had not a notion of that lurking laughter in the lady's eyes, and indeed it is quite probable that in the affecting circumstances of their later connection and her grateful enthusiasm for his kindness to her sons she may have ceased to remember any of the lighter phases of observation which enlivened the beginning of

their friendship. All the witnesses agree that Buckle was brilliant in conversation, and there is no gift which so entirely charms society. He was thought to be terribly conceited' by people who met him for the first time, and his confidence in himself never seems to have been subject to the heats and chills which beset more sensitive imaginations. But it was a fact that he had a great deal to say, and that what he said was worth listening to; and he was aware that it cost him a great deal, and that day by day for the previous fifteen or twenty years he had been pouring so much into himself that reason itself vouched for the certainty that there must be a great deal to come out. His confidence in his own wisdom and accuracy was never interrupted. Once for all,' he asserts, 'I may say that I have made no assertion for the truth of which I do not possess ample and irrefragable evidence.' From his own point of view no doubt he was right, his error being that the evidence on which he founded was sometimes untrustworthy, and not corrected either by observation or by the larger action of a mind impartial. Everybody knows how unsatisfactory are the 'proofs quoted which can be got out of books, from Scripture downwards, of any given doctrines, how difficult it is not to strain here and there the meaning of a word, or to exaggerate the importance of an insignificant witness whose testimony is very pat, to the point. But, on the other hand, a man has naturally much more respect for the evidence which he has quarried out of the most unlikely quarters than he has for those sources of information which are open to everybody. And knowing, as he did, how hard he had worked for it, and from what distant and unthought-of corners he had brought his knowledge, how can any mortal man, conscious of corresponding weakness, wonder at the philosopher's strong sense of his own infallible convictions and well-informed views on every point? A man does not read three volumes a day with impunity, any more than he can commit other excesses. Where was the other man who could say as much, who had done so much to prove his theory or make his information complete? As for an anonymous creature in a review, who wrote for the necessities of the moment, perhaps for bread and butter, as wretched littérateurs so often have to do, Thomas Henry Buckle brushed him away as he would have done a fly. What was he in comparison with one who knew that he was right, and said so composedly? It was not a thing which admitted of a doubt; there was no peradventure in it. Pope Pius himself, his infallible contemporary, was in all likelihood, could we have learned his personal sentiments, not half so sure.

Besides the two volumes of the history, only one or two small pieces of work came from his hands. He delivered a lecture on 'The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge,' in the Royal Institution, and as this was done in the very first flush of his popularity, that part of the fashionable world which concerns itself with literary lions crowded to hear him. Of this he tells his publisher a

from men of influence as to the effect produced by my lecture—all regarding it as an epoch.'

Another production was a tremendous philippic against the late Mr. Justice Coleridge, in respect to the case of a certain poor blasphemer to whom that judge had given an exceptionally severe sentence. Buckle seems to have been in the right in his objections; but we can scarcely help a faint suggestion that if Voltaire had not made himself so famous in the Calas case, Buckle might have overlooked poor Perley. Perhaps this is unfair, but there is just a little whiff of plagiarism about the whole business. In one or two other respects we cannot help thinking Buckle kept half an eye upon Voltaire, and would have liked to be like him.

When he had got to the end of the second volume his strength, both physical and moral, seems to have been entirely exhausted. He was obliged to give up his books, both reading and writing. How can a man help being dull when he neither reads nor thinks?' he asks in one of his letters. It was the complete prostration of this exhausted state which made him take up the idea of that journey to the East which was to be so fatal. He seems to have resolved upon this more out of a languid sense that to do something was necessary than from any strong personal inclination. But it was made pleasant to him by the sudden fancy of taking with him two boys with whom he had made acquaintance at a school kept by one of his friends, the sons of Mr. Henry Huth, with whom and his accomplished wife (whose contribution to the biography we have just quoted) he had lately formed a warm friendship. The idea would seem to have been a sudden one, but Buckle appears always to have been delightful with children.

He left England for Egypt in October 1861, and the expedition proved so successful and delightful that the party went on to Syria and the Holy Land. There things did not go so well; Buckle became ill, and was so much weakened that various people he met advised him to give up his further journey; but his heart was set on seeing Damascus, and he pushed on in spite of everything. The last part of the journey seems to have been gone through in that feverish confusion of increasing illness which resolves everything into a long and painful dream, penetrated here and there by the glory of a landscape, a sudden gleam of beauty and splendour penetrating the rising mists. One or two such broke the attention of those feverish days of half-stupefied progress and unrefreshing rest. When he came in sight of Damascus he was sufficiently roused to exclaim, 'This is worth all it has cost me.' He kept up with a wonderful tenacity, riding and walking, with broken bits of repose where it was possible, until at last he reached that dream-city which he had longed to see all his life. He reached it only to die. Of course there is something said about wrong treatment and incompetent doctors, as was inevitable in the circumstances; but he would seem to have been involved in