ns, and had given to the human spirit its
ceaselessly-changing forms of energy. It was as if the whole landscape
of history had been suddenly lit up by a burst of sunlight. I have
never heard from any other lips any discourse like this, nor from his
did I ever hear the like again.

His style suffered in his later days from the abundance of the
interspersed citations, and from the overfulness and subtlety of the
thought, which occasionally led to obscurity. But when he handled a
topic in which learning was not required, his style was clear, pointed
and incisive, sometimes epigrammatic. Several years ago he wrote in a
monthly magazine a short article upon a biography of one of his
contemporaries which showed how admirable a master he was of polished
diction and penetrating analysis, and made one wish that he had more
frequently consented to dash off light work in a quick unstudied way.

To the work of a University professor he came too late to acquire the
art of fluent and forcible oral discourse, nor was the character of
his mind, with its striving after a flawless exactitude of statement,
altogether fitted for the function of presenting broad summaries of
facts to a youthful audience. His predecessor in the Cambridge chair
of history, Sir John Seeley, with less knowledge, less subtlety, and
less originality, had in larger measure the gift of oral exposition
and the power of putting points, whether by speech or by writing, in
a clear and telling way. No one, indeed, since Macaulay has been a
better point-putter than Seeley was. But Acton's lectures (read from
MS.) were models of lucid and stately narrative informed by fulness of
thought; and they were so delivered as to express the feeling which
each event had evoked in his own mind. That sternness of character
which revealed itself in his judgments of men and books never affected
his relations to his pupils. Precious as his time was, he gave it
generously, encouraging them to come to him for help and counsel. They
were awed by the majesty of his learning. Said one of them to me,
"When Lord Acton answers a question put to him, I feel as if I were
looking at a pyramid. I see the point of it clear and sharp, but I see
also the vast subjacent mass of solid knowledge." They perceived,
moreover, that to him History and Philosophy were not two things but
one, and perceived that of History as well as of divine Philosophy it
may be said that she too is "charming, and musical as