cules, atoms and corpuscles, the various forms of energy and the various forms of matter, are gradually appearing simply as different phases or conditions of a continuous whole.

Scientific men are themselves only beginning to grasp the bearing of the new conceptions of the cosmos towards which the advances in physical science are tending, and they themselves, as well as the general public, are much indebted to the President of the British Association for his The Saturday Review.

luminous synthesis of the tendencies of modern science. But it is to be observed, notwithstanding the vaporings of those who invoke every wonderful discovery of radium or Röntgen rays or wireless telegraphy as in some strange fashion making science less materialistic, that every advance towards scientific monism, whilst it leaves untouched the ultimate conceptions of theology, leaves less real ground for the silliness of pseudo-scientific mysticism.

The death of Sir Theodore Martin, which "Maga" regrets to record, severs one of the world's few remaining links with a distant past. Born a year after Waterloo, he grew up in the midst of a romantic movement which influenced his taste and dictated his preferences. In his childhood he had seen Scott; Thackeray was his contemporary; Froude was his friend; all the great personages of the Victorian era passed before him; and as he retained his marvellous zest for life, his keen interest in affairs, until the end, he understood, if he did not approve, the desires and aspirations of the rising generations. Such an age as his, "frosty but kindly," has no drawbacks. He never lost the youthfulness of spirit which delights in thought and work and talk. Those who were privileged to know him will not easily forget his quick enthusiasms, his just indignations. If there was much in this present age that he condemned, he condemned it as a contemporary, not as a stranger looking upon the world from the high tableland of another age. In brief, he kept his sympathies ever fresh, and it was his good fortune to lay down the burden of life before it became too irksome to be borne.

In a Preface written in 1903 for the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," he declared that of his long and very crowded life literature had occupied the smallest part. If it were the smallest part, it was also the intensest, and it is the man of letters in Sir Theodore Martin, not the able and industrious lawyer, that will survive in our minds and memories. He was wise enough at the outset of his career to make law his support and literature his recreation, and we read what he wrote with the greater pleasure, because we feel the author's own pleasure in the composition of every line. It was to Edinburgh that he owed his birth and education, and he was already thirty when he went to try his fortune in London. There he threw himself into the practice of his two professions with the energy and power of work which remained with him all his life. A paper of his writing in "Fraser's Magazine," which bore the admirable title of "Flowers of Hemp; or, the Newgate Garland. By one of the Family,"— had-in 1841-won him the friendship of Aytoun, already familiar to all readers of "Blackwood's Magazine," and thus, to cite Sir Theodore's own words, "a kind of Beaumont and Fletcher

partnership was formed, which commenced in a series of humorous papers that were published in "Tait's' and 'Fraser's' Magazines in the years 1842, 1843, and 1844." These papers, collected together as the "Bon Gaultier Ballads," achieved a success of popularity of which their authors had never dreamed. And they deserved abundantly all the success which was theirs. A gayer, livelier set of parodies does not exist. They stand the sternest test -comparison with "Rejected Addresses." The secret of the collaboration remains unpierced. We can do no more than give an equal share of praise to each, and congratulate ourselves that two wits of close sympathy and quick understanding were there to pay Lockhart and Macaulay, Tennyson and Mrs. Browning, Moore and Leigh Hunt the supreme tribute of parody. For the next twenty years Theodore Martin published little else than verse translations. He sought his originals in German, Latin, and Italian. He attempted those enterprises which have always been deemed impossible, and he attempted them with a high courage that often baffled failure. As we have said, he grew up in the heyday of Romance, and it was but natural that he and Aytoun should play their part in the literary revolution by turning into English the poems and ballads of Goethe. The uniformity of style discernible in these admirable versions makes it difficult to believe that they were not all the work of one hand. But as Sir Theodore has told us,. "from a habit of working together we naturally caught each something of the other's manner. How far this went may be seen from a passage in a letter of Aytoun's when revising the proof-sheets of our volume in 1858: 'In going over the poems I was very much struck by the occasional resemblance of our styles. There is one of yours, "To my Mistress," which I could almost have sworn to

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be mine, from the peculiarity of the cadences, if I did not know it to be yours.' What was doubtful to the authors is doubly doubtful to us, and we would defy the most sensitive reader to separate the work of the two collarborators. But the composition was a delight, as we know from a youthful Preface written two years ago by Sir Theodore. "We worked together," he wrote, "in the days when 'life was all before us,' by Salisbury Crags or on the shores of the Firth of Forth." And the authors took a proper pride in the result. "We may hang out our shields," said Aytoun, "as at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and without any fear await the coming of challengers who shall contrast their performances with ours."

To-day Romance is no more in fashion, and the captive earls, and the false lovers, and the maids of honor of Goethe's ballads seem like creatures who have been beguiled by their translators from another planet. A work of more solidly enduring merit is Sir Theodore's version of "Faust," which will easily bear comparison with the best of its rivals, and may be accepted as the closest echo in English of Goethe's masterpiece. Sir Theodore well knew the perils of his adventure. "You, too," he wrote in a dedicatory epistle to Froude

You, too, can measure well how great
His perils are, who would translate
The

thoughts on aptest language
strung,

And wed them to another tongue.

But he faced these perils cheerfully and with success. He was near enough in spirit and in time faithfully to represent the art and sentiment of Goethe. His version of Horace stands on a lower plane of merit. It possesses many admirable qualities. It is fluent, melodious, and vivid. It does no wrong to the poet's meaning. But it

is not Horace. Sir Theodore essayed a task that will never be accomplished. The old wine of Latin poetry may not be put into the new bottles of our English verse. The most that can be done by the translator is to compose a fantasy upon the theme or themes of Horace. And this Sir Theodore has done, and done well. He has not been able to suggest in English Horace's compact style, splendid economy of phrase, and firm, even tight, handling of many metres. Wherever we look we find pleasant verses pleasantly turned, which dimly suggest the wise original. Here, for instance, is the beginning of Exegi Monumentum

I've reared a monument, my own,
More durable than brass,
Yea, kingly pyramids of stone

In height it doth surpass.

Here is Horace's meaning. Here are not his gravity and the stern measure of his lines.

Time was to prove that Sir Theodore Martin's real talent lay, not in the composition of verse, original or translated, but in the difficult, delicate art of biography. That great opportunity, which is said to come once to the most of men, came to him when he was asked by Queen Victoria to write the "Life of the Prince Consort." It was in 1866 that the suggestion was made, and Sir Theodore Martin accepted it on condition that he was given no payment but a free hand. That he should be entrusted with so difficult and important a work was the highest tribute that could be paid to his delicacy and tact, and the event proved how well the Queen's choice was justified. In some respects it might have seemed hazardous. Sir Theodore had not knownhe had never seen-the Prince Consort. But the Queen trusted him without reserve, and his own excellent judgment and perfect knowledge of affairs came to his aid. In a little book, entitled "Queen Victoria as I Knew Her," pub

lished but a year ago, Sir Theodore placed on record the confidence and generosity wherewith the Queen treated him. It is an intimate sketch, which bears in every line the stamp of authenticity. For instance, thus he describes the Queen's nervousness, which he noted at their first interview: "serene and full of quiet dignity as it was," he writes, "almost amounting to shyness, which, as I came to know afterwards, Her Majesty always seemed to feel in first meeting a stranger-a shyness so little to be expected in a Sovereign who had gone through so many exciting scenes, and had known nearly all the most distinguished men in Europe. To show no signs of embarrassment, but to be simple and self-possessed, I saw at once was my true policy." And this simplicity, this self-possession, perfectly characteristic of him, he preserved until the end. On the other hand, the Queen's warm reception and constant faith made the task of biography light, if long. Nothing was withheld from him. The most secret documents were submitted to his judgment, and he wrote the "Life of the Prince Consort" out of a full knowledge and with a complete understanding. It remains, and will always remain, a work of the highest value and importance. It is more than a biography-it is the history of England for a quarter of a century; and future historians will attach to it the value of an original document. Its profound research, its fine sense of proportion, its candor, and its intellectual honesty will always ensure its fame. At its first publication, it was criticised as partial, because it did not follow the usual practice of English history and look at all men and all events from the standpoint of the Whigs. But this independence is now recognized as a great merit of the book, which not merely dissipated the mist of ignorance and prejudice in which

the Prince Consort's name was enwrapt, but revealed for the first time something of the grandeur and pertinacity of temper which distinguished Queen Victoria.

During the fourteen years which Sir Theodore devoted to the writing of the Prince Consort's Life, he became an informal friend and adviser of the Queen. Though he held no office at Court, she did not scruple to ask his counsel whenever she needed it. His position, one of great delicacy, could not be better defined than in a letter written to him by the Queen in 1869: "The Queen really is at a loss"-thus runs the letter-"to say how much she feels his constant and invariable kindness to her, and how deeply grateful she is for it. In the Queen's position though it might sound strange, as she has so many to serve her, she feels the assistance rendered her by others in private matters, in which her official servants, from one cause or another, seem to feel little interest and to be very helpless, is of immense value; and she considers it most fortunate, to say the least, to have found so kind a friend as Mr. Martin. The Queen likewise feels that in him she has found an impartial friend, who can tell her many important things which her own unbiassed servants cannot hear or tell her." It is not often that a monarch pays so high and intimate a tribute to a subject. But there is no doubt that Sir Theodore, by his ready sympathy and fearless criticism, did much to make the Queen's isolation tolerable. Before she wrote the letter quoted above, he was already become her literary counsellor. He had given her what advice she asked concerning her "Leaves from a Journal," the reception of which book she watched with the anxiety of an unaccustomed author. To Sir Theodore she frankly reveals the pleasure which favorable criticism gave her. "The Queen would have

liked to go to Mr. Martin," she wrote on January 19, 1868, "but ever since she came in, at a quarter past five, she has done nothing but read the reviews in the newspapers. She is very much moved-deeply so-but not uplifted or 'puffed up' by so much kindness, so much praise." And she valued the kindness and the praise, because they came at a time when she was bitterly distressed by the gossips of newspapers, which complained most unjustly that she shut herself up to nurse her sorrow and neglected the affairs of State. In the trouble caused by this gossip, she turned to Sir Theodore as to a faithful friend. In the same pathetic letter she declares that there are still two things which she "wished Mr. Martin could find means to get rectified and explained: 1, That the Queen wrote "The Early Years.""" Pray have that contradicted. 2, That it is the Queen's sorrow that keeps her secluded to a certain extent. Now, it is her overwhelming work, and her health, which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming amount of work and responsibilitywork which she feels really wears her out. . . . From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets in to it again there is work, work, work,-letterboxes, questions, &c., which are dreadfully exhausting,-and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in the evening, she would most likely not be alive. Her brain is constantly overtaxed. Could not this truth be openly put before the people?" Sir Theodore, with his invariable tact, counselled silence. It was not for a Queen to explain, and the work of misrepresentation could be undone, as it was undone, only by the lapse of time.

No sooner was the "Life of the Prince Consort" finished than Sir Theodore was asked to vindicate the memory of that great lawyer and distin1 General Grey's book.

guished statesman, Lord Lyndhurst. Some vindication was necessary, because a hastily published manuscript by Lord Campbell had done a profound injustice to Lyndhurst's memory. And Sir Theodore, having replied to Campbell's aspersions, sketched a vivid portrait of the slandered Chancellor. The spirit in which he performed his task is clearly explained in a preface. "To clear the fair fame of Lord Lyndhurst," he wrote, "from the incrustation of direct misstatement and subtle innuendo with which it had been overlaid by Lord Campbell, was a task of which any man might be proud. That task the present writer undertook only after he had gone thoroughly into the whole facts of Lord Lyndhurst's life." The result is a masterpiece of political biography, which still holds a high place among the annals of our time. Nor did Sir Theodore indulge his taste for portraiture only, in his graver works. He was an adept in the difficult craft of painting portraits in a few pages. A collection of "Monographs," published some three years ago, proves how sensitively he understood, how skilfully he could portray, the strength and weakness of actor or statesman. Above all he had a profound knowledge of the stage. Of the old actors he knew whatever tradition could tell him. Of the new his appreciation was always right and sincere. And this understanding of the stage came from something more than a general predilection. In 1851 he had married Miss Helen Faucit, the distinguished actress, who had already won a conspicuous success as Juliet, Hermione, Rosalind, and Imogen. Henceforth his natural devotion to the theatre increased. He took a keener interest in his wife's art than in his own. His enthusiasm for her skill never flagged, his admiration never grew cool, and none that knew Sir Theodore in his last years will forget the simple

sincerity with which he recalled his wife's triumphs on the stage, and expounded her wise theories of dramatic art.

Her theories were his also. His study of Macready owes much, no doubt, to her influence, and his opinions on theatrical policy were shaped in part by her practical wisdom. "It is idle to talk of a national theatre," he wrote, "until we have trained actors wherewith to fill it," and the promoters of the ill-omened scheme will find the truth of his words, if ever they get beyond the point of discussion. And well as he knew the stage, perhaps because he knew it so well, he did not conceal from himself its weaknesses and its follies. He sketches in Macready the vain cabotin, whose great talent should have taught him a better way. He draws in Rachel the child of genius, compact of air and fire, who read no more of a play than her "own part and the answers," and yet could see, as in a flash of lightning, the dramatic possibilities of Racine's masterpieces. So wisely, indeed, did Sir Theodore write of the stage that his "Monographs" show as clearly as any of his works the wonderful adaptability of his mind and temper. He turned from politics to the stage, from the stage again to the heroic attempt to translate the untranslatable. His last essay in the difficult art of translation was made in 1896, when he turned the first six books of the "Eneid" into English blank verse. Where a hundred intrepid men have failed, Sir Theodore did not succeed. In a sensible Preface, he argued that blank verse is the only proper medium for Virgil. But blank verse is infinite and changing like the The Earl of Surrey as long ago as 1557 proved the truth of Sir Theodore's opinion in a matchless fragment, which Sir Theodore duly praises "for its closeness of interpretation, and for

sea.