ect, therefore, little or nothing remains to be said. I will only
add that during several years of intimacy with him I had every reason
to feel honoured by his friendship, to set high value on his literary
judgments, and to appreciate his scrupulous intellectual integrity.

From that memoir I take the main incidents that belong to Sir Spencer
Walpole's personal biography. After leaving Eton he entered the Civil
Service at an early age, and worked for some time in the War Office,
until he was transferred to a position of larger independence. He was
subsequently appointed to the Governorship of the Isle of Man, where
he remained for about twelve years; and afterwards he became Secretary
to the Post Office until his retirement in 1899. In the discharge of
the duties of these offices he was indefatigable; his services were
fully approved by all with whom he came into public relations; yet
throughout these years he found time for hard and unceasing literary
work. In his earlier days he was a regular contributor to the
periodical press, mainly on questions of finance; he wrote the lives
of two Prime Ministers--his grandfather Spencer Perceval and Lord John
Russell--while from 1876 up to the year of his death he was engaged
upon his _History of England_. Five volumes were published, at
intervals, on the period between 1815 and 1857; and four subsequent
volumes, under the title of the _History of Twenty-five Years_,
brought the whole narrative up to 1880. But the proofs of the two
final volumes had not been revised by his hand, when he was struck
down by a sudden and fatal malady of the brain. Other recent
publications were a small book on the Isle of Man, entitled the _Land
of Home Rule; Studies in Biography_; and the collection of essays to
which I have already referred.

It is upon this History of England from 1815 to 1880 that Sir Spencer
Walpole's lasting reputation, as a man of letters, will rest. To have
combined the writing of such a book with the duties of a very diligent
official is no slight achievement; though one may observe that direct
contact with administration, with political affairs, and with
parliamentary leaders, is for the historian a distinct advantage. It
is worth remarking that his family connections, which brought Walpole
into the Civil Service, in no way biased his judgment on public
questions. The grandson of a high Tory Prime Minister, the son of a
Conservative Secretary of State, he was throughout