dent of his life. Lord Tennyson
tells us in his _Memoir_ that one evening, when his father and mother
were rowing across the Solent, they saw a heron. His father described
this incident in the following language: "One dark heron flew over the
sea, backed by a daffodil sky." Similarly, Lyall, writing with the
enthusiasm of a young father for his firstborn, said: "The child has
eyes like the fish-pools of Heshbon, with wondrous depth of intelligent
gaze." But, though a poet, it would be a great error to suppose that
Lyall was an idealist, if by that term is meant one who, after a
platonic fashion, indulges in ideas which are wholly visionary and
unpractical. He had, indeed, ideals. No man of his imagination and
mental calibre could be without them. But they were ideals based on a
solid foundation of facts. It was here that, in spite of some sympathy
based on common literary tastes, he altogether parted company from a
brother poet, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, who has invariably left his facts to
take care of themselves. Though eminently meditative and reflective,
Lyall's mind, his biographer says, "seemed always hungry for facts."
"Though he had an unusual degree of imagination, he never allowed
himself to be tempted too far from the region of the known or the
knowable." The reason why he at times appeared to vacillate was that he
did not consider he sufficiently understood all the facts to justify his
forming an opinion capable of satisfying his somewhat hypercritical
judgment. He was, in fact, very difficult to convince of the truth of an
opinion, not because of his prejudices, for he had none, but by reason
of his constitutional scepticism. He acted throughout life on the
principle laid down by the Greek philosopher Epicharmus: "Be sober, and
remember to disbelieve. These are the sinews of the mind." I have been
informed on unimpeachable authority that when he was a member of the
Treasury Committee which sat on the question of providing facilities for
the study of Oriental languages in this country, he constantly asked the
witnesses whom he examined leading questions from which it might rather
be inferred that he held opinions diametrically opposed to those which
in reality he entertained. His sole object was to arrive at a sound
conclusion. He wished to elicit all possible objections to any views to
which he was personally inclined. It is very probable that his Oriental
experience led him to adopt this procedure; for, as any one