speaks particularly of the influence of John Sterling and of Carlyle. He finally emerged from his cave of gloom, and in 1830 commenced his political and philosophical writings. From that period until the end of his life he exerted an immense influence on English thought.

When the Carlyles moved to London, in 1834, John Stuart Mill welcomed and soon became on intimate terms with them. In his "Reminiscences" Carlyle thus describes him:

He had taken a great attachment to me (which lasted about ten years and then suddenly ended, I never knew how), an altogether clear, logical, honest, amicable, affectionate young man, and respected as such here, though sometimes felt to be rather colorless, even aqueous, no religion in any form traceable in him.

And again he says:

"His talk is sawdustish, like ale when there is no wine to be had."

As a critic in the Westminster Review Mill became very influential. He was among the first to discover the genius of Tennyson, and when the Quarterly was ridiculing Tennyson's first volume, the Westminster highly praised it.

So, too, of Carlyle. It was Mill's praise of "The French Revolution" which saved that book. Perhaps Mill felt some reponsibility in It will be remembered that he had

the matter.

borrowed the history in manuscript, had loaned the first volume to his friend, Mrs. Taylor, and through her carelessness it had been destroyed. It was a terrible blow to all concerned, though Carlyle took it more philosophically than the others. After a course of novels he resolutely sat down and rewrote the volume.

When the book was published Mill pointed out its great beauties and declared that a new and powerful writer had appeared.

In his autobiography Mill speaks of Carlyle's great influence on himself, and acknowledges his debt to him.

In 1865 Mill was elected to the House of Commons, but his parliamentary career was something of a disappointment. He did not possess the oratorical temperament, and while he was listened to with respect he exerted no particular influence. He failed of re-election in 1868.

His remaining years were passed at Avignon, in France. He died in 1873 in his sixty-seventh year, meeting death with the philosophical fortitude that had characterized his life.

His autobiography is a very curious and interesting book.

MR. AND MRS. GEORGE GROTE.

WHOEVER reads the memoirs, diaries, journals and reminiscences in which social life in London between the years 1830 and 1870 is described will constantly meet with the names of Mr. and Mrs. George Grote. They possessed a large circle of friends, embracing everybody in the literary world best worth knowing, and they seem to have been great favorites. He was a learned and amiable gentleman of extremely liberal opinions, and she was a cultivated but extremely eccentric woman. He was gentle and refined— almost feminine in his manner; she was tall, highshouldered, uncommonly handsome, but masculine in appearance and brusque even to rudeness in her intercourse with society. She was two years his senior and they were married in 1820, when he was twenty-six and she twenty-eight. They lived to old age, he dying in 1871 at the age of seventy-seven and she in 1878 at the age of eighty-six. After his death she published his

biography under the title of "The Personal Life of George Grote," in which much of their joint lives and work was described. After her death Lady Eastlake published an interesting sketch of her life. In these volumes one can see something of two very remarkable persons, but a much more striking view of them may be seen in Fanny Kemble's "Records," in Mrs. Carlyle's "Letters," in "Greville's Memoirs," in "Rogers' Table Talk," and in the "Life and Letters of Sydney Smith." In other books, too, occasional glimpses may be had, as in the volume of literary essays, "Safe Studies," by Lionel A. Tollemache.

George Grote, author of the monumental History of Greece," in twelve volumes, which few people read and all admire, was a successful London banker. He was England's "bankerhistorian," as Rogers was her "banker-poet," and Sir John Lubbock is her "banker-naturalist." From his youth Grote was fond of classical studies, and three years after his marriage his wife inspired him to undertake the history. He began it in 1823, laid it aside during the ten years between 1833 and 1843 that he served in parliament, and finished it in 1855, when he had just completed his sixty-first year. This was the main literary work of his life, though he wrote much else which

commanded wide attention. He early came under the influence of James Mill, that sturdy Scotch reformer and agnostic, and Mrs. Grote has no hesitation in saying that this influence was not altogether helpful to the young banker and student. But he was for years one of the bright and shining lights of the advanced school of religious and political thought in England which was founded by James Mill and had its best expression in John Stuart Mill.

Grote lived on terms of intimacy with the Mills for many years, but Mrs. Grote had not so much toleration for them, and a final rupture came when the Mrs. Taylor episode in John Stuart Mill's career occurred. That platonic attachment as it really was-was something too much for Mrs. Grote, and she expressed herself accordingly. This kind of criticism was the one thing Stuart Mill would not endure, and Mrs. Grote was too outspoken a woman not to comment on what appeared like a breach of social morals.

Sydney Smith was one of Mrs. Grote's warmest admirers, though he could not forbear indulging his wit at what he called her grotesqueries. One of his witticisms is recorded by Fanny Kemble. "I like them, I like them," he said