se
for smoking in it. He terrified a meek curate, who came to persuade him
to leave his burning home, by shouting at him, "By the immortal gods I
will not move." He carried on a desultory correspondence with Lord
Broughton, full of literary humour and literary sentiment. He practised
small benevolences and small tyrannies, liked to see smiling faces about
him, and declined to believe seriously in the unhappiness of others. He
was a thoroughly good-natured, selfish old man.

In old age he had to pay the penalty that awaits those who live by the
head and not by the heart. He had kind acquaintances, but he had no real
friends. He had nothing to look back upon but a series of more or less
amusing events and a tale of successful achievements--no high
enterprises, no splendid failures, no passionate affections. Before him
lay nothing but his books, his dinner, and a literary reputation.
Capable biographers can make pretty pictures of the white-haired scholar
surrounded by his favourite authors. They can turn his petulant
limitations and querulous prejudices into exquisite foibles, his
despotisms into quaint impetuosity, his insensibility to human want and
misery into mellow wisdom. But we cannot forget that the last years of
those who have never passionately pursued impossible ideals or loved
imperfect human beings are probably more attractive to the biographers
who record than to the men and women who have to endure them.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] "The Plays of Thomas Love Peacock." Published for the first time.
Edited by A. B. Young. (David Nutt.)

[5] The week after this article appeared Sir Frederick Pollock wrote to
the _Athenaeum_ complaining of my having called Spedding a prig. Well,
here is a sample of what Spedding has to say about "Melincourt":

"Had the business ended here we should have thought that the
author's better genius had prevailed. We might indeed have
questioned many of his doctrines, both social and political; and
shown cause to doubt whether in the faithful bosom of real nature
they would yield so fair a harvest as in the more accommodating soil
of fiction. But we should have met him with undivided sympathy, as
no idle talker on no idle theme. This, however, his worst genius
interferes to prevent. He has only a half faith in the cause he has
espoused, and dares not let go his interest with the other party. It
is as if, having, in sport or curiosity, raised the veil