ated in the Reform Bill begin to excite
his contempt. He is vexed by the many weaknesses of party government.
The war of 1866 suggests reflections upon the military weakness of
England, and upon the inability of our statesmen to attend to any object
which has no effect upon votes. The behaviour of the Conservative
Government in the case of the Hyde Park riots of the same year excites
his hearty contempt. He is in favour of the disestablishment of the
Irish Church, and lays down substantially the principles embodied in
Mr. Gladstone's measure. But he sympathises more and more with Carlyle's
view of our blessed constitution. We have the weakest and least
permanent government that ever ruled a great empire, and it seems to be
totally incapable of ever undertaking any of the great measures which
require foresight and statesmanship. He compares in this connection the
construction of legal codes in India with our inability to make use of a
great legal reformer, such as Lord Westbury, when we happen to get him.
Sentiments of this kind seem to grow upon him, although they are not
expressed with bitterness or many personal applications. It is enough to
say that his antipathy to sentimentalism, and to the want of high
patriotic spirit in the Manchester school of politics, blends with a
rather contemptuous attitude towards the parliamentary system. It
reveals itself to him, now that he is forced to become a critic, as a
petty game of wire-pulling and of pandering to shallow popular
prejudices of which he is beginning to grow impatient.

I may finish the account of his literary activity at this time by saying
that he was still contributing occasional articles to 'Fraser' and to
the 'Saturday Review.' The 'Saturday Review' articles were part of a
scheme which he took up about 1864. It occurred to him that he would be
employing himself more profitably by writing a series of articles upon
old authors than by continuing to review the literature of the day. He
might thus put together a kind of general course of literature. He wrote
accordingly a series of articles which involved a great amount of
reading as he went through the works of some voluminous authors. They
were published as 'Horae Sabbaticae' in 1892, in three volumes, without
any serious revision. It is unnecessary to dwell upon them at any
length. It would be unfair to treat them as literary criticism, for
which he cared as little as it deserves. He was very fond, indeed, of