usion of Useful Knowledge. But his
time, when unoccupied at the office, was principally devoted to
metaphysical research and the history of philosophical opinion. His
spirits, sometimes apt to be graver than is the wont of youth, now
became more animated and even gay, so that his family were cheered on to
hope that his health was firmly gaining ground. The unpleasant symptoms
which manifested themselves in his earlier years had almost entirely
disappeared, when an attack of intermittent fever in the spring of 1833
gave the fatal blow to his constitution. In August, the careful, tender
father took his beloved son into Germany, trusting to a change of
climate for restoration. Travelling slowly, they lingered among the
scenes connected with a literature and a history both were so familiar
with, and many pleasant and profitable hours of delightful converse
gladdened Arthur's journey. It is difficult to picture a more
interesting group of travellers through the picturesque regions they
were again exploring.

No child was ever more ardently loved--nay, worshipped--by his father
than Arthur Hallam. The parallel, perhaps, exists in Edmund Burke's fond
attachment for and subsequent calamity in the loss of his son Richard.
That passage in the life of the great statesman is one of the most
affecting in all biographical literature. "The son thus deeply
lamented," says Prior, "had always conducted himself with much filial
duty and affection. Their confidence on all subjects was even more
unreserved than commonly prevails between father and son, and their
esteem for each other higher.... The son looked to the father as one of
the first, if not the very first, character in history; the father had
formed the very highest opinion of the talents of the son, and among his
friends rated them superior to his own." The same confiding
companionship grew up between Henry Hallam and his eldest boy, and
continued till "death set the seal of eternity" upon the young and
gifted Arthur.

The travellers were returning to Vienna from Pesth; a damp day set in
while they were on the journey; again intermittent fever attacked the
sensitive invalid, and suddenly, mysteriously, his life was ended. It
was the 15th of September, 1833, and Arthur Hallam lay dead in his
father's arms. Twenty-two brief years, and all high hopes for him, the
manly, the noble-spirited, this side the tomb, are broken down forever.
Well might his heart-crushed father sob aloud,