you always have been if you will identify yourselves with the spirit of the age. The English people look to the gentry and aristocracy of their country as their leaders. I, who am not one of you, have no hesitation in telling you that there is a deeprooted, an hereditary prejudice, if I may so call it, in your favor in this country. But you never got it, and you will not keep it, by obstructing the spirit of the age. If you are indifferent to enlightened means of finding employment to your own peasantry; if you are found obstructing that advance which is calculated to knit nations more together in the bonds of peace by means of commercial intercourse; if you are found fighting against the discoveries which have almost given breath and life to material nature, and setting up yourselves as obstructives of that which destiny has decreed shall go on-why, then, you will be the gentry of England no longer, and others will be found to take your place.

Well, then, this

And I have no hesitation in saying that you stand just now in a very critical position. There is a widespread suspicion that you have been tampering with the best feelings and with the honest confidence of your constituents in this cause. Everywhere you are doubted and suspected. Read your own organs, and you will see that this is the case. is the time to show that you are not the mere party politicians which you are said to be. I have said that we shall be opposed in this measure by politicians; they do not want inquiry. But I ask you to go into this committee with me. I will give you a majority of county members. You shall have a majority of the Central Society in that committee. I ask you only to go into a fair inquiry as to the causes of the distress of your own population. I only ask that this matter may be fairly examined. Whether you establish my principle or yours, good will come out of the inquiry; and I do, therefore, beg and entreat the honorable independent country gentlemen of this House that they will not refuse, on this occasion, to go into a fair, a full, and an impartial inquiry.

EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER LYTTON,

LORD LYTTON

1803-1873

Lord Lytton, the youngest son of William Earle Bulwer Lytton of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, was born in London on May 25, 1803. Having attended several private schools, he went to Cambridge at Easter, 1822. He became a Master of Arts in 1835. At Cambridge he began writing, did much promiscuous reading, and formed some acquaintances which were pleasing and useful to him in later life. The mere enumeration of the works of this voluminous writer and the circumstances attending their inception, progress, and publication would require more space than is allotted here. Let it suffice to say that Lytton was one of those few authors who gained great popularity in the face of generally hostile criticism. No English author has displayed greater industry and versatility. His last books are among his best; and, though his published works fill several scores of volumes, he left unpublished several dramas, a volume of the " History of Athens," and an immense number of unfinished novels, plays, poems, and essays. It has been said that Lytton's most obvious weakness was his want of spontaneous sincerity, being always self-conscious and striving after unattainable effects; but he had enough talent to know that he possessed genius, which is above talent. It is to be regretted that Lytton did not write at least one novel expressing his views of life frankly and vigorously. His historical novels, however, are the product of much laborious study, and his essays prove that he read widely and carefully.

The other field in which Lord Lytton gained a more moderate distinction was that of politics. At the age of twenty-eight he entered Parliament as a member for Ives, and in 1832 he was returned as member for Lincoln, and continued to represent this borough till 1841. Bulwer was at this time a reformer in politics and attached himself to the Reform party. He received his baronetcy from the Melbourne ministry for his brilliant services as pamphleteer. His most remarkable performance in this line was A Letter to a late Cabinet Minister on the Crisis." In 1841 Lytton lost his seat and did not return to political life till 1852, when, after joining the Conservatives, he was elected member of Parliament for Hertfordshire. He held this seat till his elevation to the peerage in 1866.

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In his parliamentary career Lord Lytton never became a skilful debater, nor did he hold an important position among the leaders of his party. His speeches, however, always carefully prepared, were often successful. The last office he held was as Secretary for the Colonies under Lord Derby in 1858. His measure for the reorganization of British Columbia was the principal bill passed during his tenure of office. As a Conservative he became the opponent of Russell and Gladstone in their movement for reform. After leaving office Lytton resumed his wonted activity as an author. He died at Torquay, January 18, 1873. Lytton was elected lord rector of Glasgow University in 1856 and again in 1858, and is often pointed out as the only Englishman on whom this honor was twice conferred. His "Address Before the University of Edinburgh" is a fine example of cultured oratory.

ADDRESS BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF

EDINBURGH

Delivered on the occasion of the installation of Lord Lytton, as honorary president of the University's Associated Societies, January 18, 1854

G

ENTLEMEN: I may well feel overcome by the kindness with which you receive me, for I cannot disentangle my earliest recollections from my sense of intellectual obligations to the genius of Scotland. The first poets who charmed me from play in the half-holidays of school were Campbell and Scott-the first historians who clothed, for me, with life, the shadows of the past, were Robertson and Hume -the first philosopher who, by the grace of his attractive style, lured me on to the analysis of the human mind, was Dugald Stewart-and the first novel that I bought with my own money, and hid under my pillow, was the "Roderick Random" of Smollett. So, when later, in a long vacation from my studies at Cambridge, I learned the love for active adventure, and contracted the habit of self-reliance by solitary excursions on foot, my staff in my hand and my knapsack on my shoulders, it was towards Scotland that I instinctively bent my way, as if to the nursery-ground from which had been wafted to my mind the first germs of those fertile and fair ideas which, after they have come to flower upon their native soil, return to seed, and are carried by the winds we know not whither, calling up endless diversities of the same plant, according to the climate and the ground to which they are borne by chance.

Gentlemen, this day I visited, with Professor Aytoun, the spot on which, a mere lad, obscure and alone, I remember to have stood one starlight night in the streets of Edinburgh, gazing across what was then a deep ravine, upon the pict

uresque outlines of the Old Town, all the associations which make Scotland so dear to romance, and so sacred to learning, rushing over me in tumultuous pleasure; her stormy history, her enchanting legends-wild tales of witchcraft and fairyland-of headlong chivalry and tragic love-all contrasting, yet all uniting, with the renown of schools famous for patient erudition and tranquil science-I remember how I then wished that I could have found some tie in parentage or blood to connect me with the great people in whose capital I stood a stranger. That tie which birth denied to me, my humble labors, and your generous kindness, have at last bestowed; and the stranger in your streets stands to-day in this crowded hall, proud to identify his own career with the hopes and aspirations of the youth of Scotland.

Gentlemen, when I turn to what the analogous custom of other universities renders my duty upon this occasion, and offer some suggestions that may serve as hints in your various studies, I feel literally overshadowed by the awe of the great names, all your own, which rise high around me in every department of human progress. It is not only the illustrious dead before whom I have to bow-your wonted fires do not live only in their ashes. The men of to-day are worthy the men of yesterday. A thousand rays of intellectual light are gathered and fused together in the varied learning of your distinguished principal. The chivalry of your glorious annals finds its new Tyrtæus in the vigorous and rushing verse of Professor Aytoun. Your medical schools, in all their branches -pathology, medical jurisprudence, surgery, anatomy, chemistry-advance more and more to fresh honors under the presiding names of Simpson, Alison, Christison, Goodsir, Traill, Syme, and Gregory. The general cause of education itself is identified with the wide repute of Professor Pillans. Nature has added the name of Forbes to the list of those who have not only examined her laws but discovered her secrets-while the comprehensive science of Sir William Hamilton still corrects and extends the sublime chart that defines the immaterial universe of ideas. And how can I forget the name of one man, whose character and works must have produced the most healthful influence over the youth of Scotland-combining, as they do, in the rarest union, all that is tender and