both. He was, as has been said, 'an aristocrat who accepted his
defeat,' and he tried to make the best of democracy. Greg fought against
the enemy to the last, and clung to every device for keeping out the
deluge. He could not get on to common ground with those who believe that
education is no sort of guarantee for political competency; that no
class, however wise and good, can be safely trusted with the interests
of other classes; and finally, that great social and economic currents
cannot be checked or even guided by select political oligarchies, on
whatever base any such oligarchy may rest.

[Footnote 9: To the Rev. E. White.]

[Footnote 10: 'When the Hungarian exiles were in England,' writes
Professor F. W. Newman, 'he was not too rich, nor had I any close
relations with him, but he voluntarily gave me ten pounds for any
service to them which I judged best.']

[Footnote 11: See his two volumes of reprinted articles, _Essays on
Political and Social Science_ (1853).]

[Footnote 12: _Correspondence_, vol. ii. pp. 212-220.]

Lord Grey's prescription for correcting the practical faults revealed by
experience in our present system of representation, consisted of the
following ingredients:--the cumulative vote; not fewer than three seats
to each constituency; universities and some other constituencies,
necessarily consisting of educated men, to have increased
representation; a limited number of life members to be introduced into
the House of Commons, the vacancies to be filled, when not less than
three had occurred, by cumulative vote within the House itself. On all
this Mr. Greg wrote to Lord Grey (May 28, 1874): 'I quite agree with you
that this impending danger we both foresee might be averted, if our
country would listen either to you or to me.'

Tenderness for these truly idle devices for keeping power in the hands
of a restricted class was all the less to be expected in Mr. Greg, as he
had made a serious study of French politics prior to 1848. Now the
Monarchy of July maintained a narrow and exclusive franchise, and its
greatest minister was the very type of the class from whom Mr. Greg
would have sought the directors of national affairs. If ever there was a
statesman who approached the fulfilment of Mr. Greg's conditions, it was
Guizot. Guizot had undergone years of patient historic study; nobody of
his time had reflected more carefully on the causes and forces of great
movements; he had more of what is called