ization he is peculiarly and nobly a lesson and a help in the daily lives of generations now or hereafter active with engrossing business cares. To every commercial man his fatal ensnarement, by temptation of unsound and speculative prosperity, is one of the most serious warnings that modern civil life can furnish; and his heroic "discharge of duty" after disaster, "a duty which there was nothing but the sense of chivalrous honour to make stringent," is one of the noblest models. His mind, if its dearest affections were attached to the varied picturesqueness of past ages, and the airy creations of poetic fancy, had solid strength of an integrity and of a true commercial pride, and an adhesion to their requirements, that more than one financial centre, and house, and man, shows too sadly lacking. And while he demonstrated that brilliant genius is compatible with sober morality, domestic peace, and patient common sense in those affairs that, in different extents, are parts of every life, he also proved how pleasantly and how appropriately the graces of fancy, as well as of the heart and of principle, can not only adorn, but render complete, any character, however “practical” it may be.

In the profession that he chose and followed, if his office was not to enunciate or to record the gravest thoughts of Themis, it was his to wreathe afresh her brow with myrtle empurpled with his native heather; and to show the world that even her severer virtues are not inseparable from the Muse's charms, and that her followers, whatever be the guile attributed to portions of them, can not only well maintain a worthy representative upon Parnassus, but also in the lists of Chivalry, — whether set like those of older or of recent times.

In literary pursuits he is eminently a model, — of principles and practice not less important than those of style and of conception that here do not require analysis. He recommends the sanctities of home; the purity of civil and domestic life; the freshness and the truthfulness of nature, material or human; and respect for sacred things.

And now while we withdraw attention from him, we yet, in our farewell, seem gazing on an ideal form that he presents to us. As when retiring from some great spire or dome, we see it still rising high, although each lesser thing around it has sunk low or disappeared, so we, with Time, moving from his age, regard the just pro

portions that his fame and character assume. That character, wrote Mr. Lockhart, 66 seems to belong to some elder and stronger period than ours ;" and, he continued, I "cannot help likening it to the architectural fabrics of other ages which" Scott "most delighted in," with all their marvellous variety of rich and beautiful, grand and picturesque design. If the writer should attempt to make an application of this excellent comparison to one of these fabrics, he would make it to Lincoln Cathedral, on its "sovereign hill." Rising lofty from foundations deep and sure, enriched by the imagination and the art, the wealth of mind and treasure, and the better qualities of many generations past, invested with associations dearly cherished, noble and pre-eminent, it stands watching over the ancient castle, the gothic palace, the cloister, the quiet homes that cluster beneath it, and the broad lands spread around,—all with stories of the human hearts that through the centuries gone were active in them. A spirit that once animated the Cathedral, like the spirit once in him, long ago departed; but to reappear in holier development. And the lofty fabric towering with the intricacies of its mediæval beauty, though now sending out no tones of mortal voice, has yet an eloquence, and day by day diffuses harmonies, more widely spreading, over earth.

The faith of Rome celebrates four Archangels, four Virgin Patron Saints, four Evangelists, four Latin Fathers of the Church. And these illustrious groups may allowably suggest to us the radiant and immortal four in English Literature, whose now ideal forms rise through the centuries of its long history, each preeminent in a broad domain: John Milton in religious poetry; William Shakespeare in the drama; Geoffrey Chaucer in the poetry of nature; and Walter Scott in all romance.

Established in his worthy place in this great company, we see his form bearing its crown, lofty and dominant like towering Lincoln, bright and eloquent and noble in the clear sunlight, that, like our parting gaze while we now leave his Lands, lingers longest on the pinnacled diadem.

INDEX.

ABBREVIATIONS.-ch., chapter; des., described; qu., quoted; sta., station.