Studies in Contemporary Biography

When Lord Acton died on 19th June 1902, at Tegern See in Bavaria, England lost the most truly cosmopolitan of her children, and Europe lost one who was, by universal consent, in...

The weakness of his eloquence sprang from its supersubtlety and superabundance. He was prone to fine distinctions. He multiplied arguments when it would have been better to rely...

Green was not one of those whose personality is unlike their books, for there was in both the same fertility, the same vivacity, the same quickness of sympathy. Nevertheless, hi...

Both these qualities--his disposition to revise his opinions in the light of new arguments and changing conditions, and the silence he maintained till the process of revision ha...

Their admiration did not prevent his friends from noting tendencies which sometimes led him to miscalculate the forces he had to deal with. Being, like the younger Pitt, extreme...

To say that Disraeli's heart was somewhat cold is by no means to say that he was heartless. He was one of those strong natures who permit neither persons nor principles to stand...

What his theological opinions were it might have puzzled Stanley himself to explain. His mind was not fitted to grasp abstract propositions. His historical imagination and his e...

As leader of his party in Opposition, he was at once daring and cautious. He never feared to give battle, even when he expected defeat, if he deemed it necessary, with a view to...

Edwin Lawrence Godkin, the son of a Protestant clergyman and author, was born in the county of Wicklow, in Ireland, in 1831. He was educated at Queen's College, Belfast, read fo...

His interest in politics was perhaps less active in later years than it had been in his youth, but his principles stood unchanged. He was a thoroughgoing Liberal, or what used t...

Meanwhile, however, there had been an immense rally to him of the younger clergy and of the less conservative among the laity. The main current of Scottish popular thought and l...

Perhaps a doubtful service either to the Church or to the State. Yet even those who regret the connection, and who, surveying the long course of Christian history from the days...

Distinguishing these several aptitudes, historians will be found to fall into two classes, according as there predominates in them the critical or the imaginative faculty. Thoug...

The main business of his life, however, was teaching and writing. Three books stand out as those by which he will be best remembered--his _Methods of Ethics_, his _Principles of...

With these defects, Mr. Gladstone's Homeric work had the merit of being based on a full and thorough knowledge of the Homeric text. He had seen, at a time when few people in Eng...

Green threw the whole force of his nature into the parish schools, spending some part of every day in them; he visited incessantly, and took an active part in the movement for r...

Fraser spent the earlier years of his manhood in Oxford, as a tutor in Oriel College, teaching Thucydides and Aristotle. Like many of his Oxford contemporaries, he continued thr...

Before long the tide turned. The Dissenters resented the Education Act of 1870. A reaction in favour of Conservatism set in, which grew so fast that, in 1874, the general electi...

But while he thus delighted in whatever bore upon history as he conceived it, his conception was one which belonged to the eighteenth century rather than to our own time. It was...

So much for his parliamentary aptitudes, which were fully recognised before he rose to leadership. But as it was his leadership that has given him a place in history, I may dwel...

If, however, the intellect of the man could not be called interesting, his character had at least this interest, that it gave one many problems to solve, and could not easily be...

[26] _Odyss._ viii. 274: "And upon the anvil-stand he set the mighty anvil; and he forged the links that could be neither broken nor loosed, so that they should stay firm in the...

He was not a great thinker nor a man of wide learning. His writings show no trace of originality, nor indeed any conspicuous philosophical acuteness or logical power. So far as...

To think of the Germans is to think of industry. Freeman was a true Teuton in the mass of his production. Besides the seven thick volumes devoted to the Norman Conquest and Will...

E-text prepared by David Clarke, Dan Horwood, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by...

Parliamentary fame is fleeting: the memory of parliamentary conflicts soon grows dim and dull. Posterity fixes a man's place in history by asking not how many tongues buzzed abo...

Bowen may possibly have been mistaken, even as regards the teachers in the great public boarding schools. His view seems to overlook or disregard that large class of persons who...

This rapid obscuration of a reputation which was genuine, for Lowe's powers had been amply proved, was due to no accident, and was apparent long before mental decay set in. The...

To most men Lord Acton seemed reserved as well as remote, presenting a smooth and shining surface beneath which it was hard to penetrate. He avoided publicity and popularity wit...

Bowen, Edward Ernest-- biography of, 343 note career of, 345-46 characteristics of, 360-62 death of, 355 games, attitude towards, 351-52 influence of, 350; views regarding, 353-...