him, reputed to be exclusive in his social estimates" not b.s." (best set), or, by a little gesture with his finger he would indicate the " nasus aduncus "—or on the entrance of another he would playfully hide a little gold charm which he wore on his watch chain, because the newcomer was supposed to have an aversion to it— and if the delinquent pleaded that such an aversion had never been hinted or expressed, "Oh, I like you to dislike it," he would say, "it's so characteristic."

rare.

And one special gift he had, which is indeed He could rebuke and yet not give offence —for he was never an instant out of season. He could, with a little barbed speech, pierce right to the heart of some weakness, probe some secret fault that, unconsciously to its possessor, was betraying itself to others, stab a pretence or an arrogance through and through at the right moment, and yet never make the auditor dislike him. As a rule, the critic and the censor are obeyed and hated. We recognise that we are the better for the stroke, but we hate the hand that directed it. But with Henry Bradshaw it was never so: one could not feel personal resentment, though the little wound rankled long. Even those whom he emphatically did not like, with whom he was most unsparing of criticism and direct derision, did not resent it: they were uneasy under it, but anxious for his good

R

opinion, anxious to redeem themselves in his eyes.

The conversation with him, as I remember it, was never sustained or argumentative. He did not care to sift the problems of life and being, or to hear them sifted before him-that was not the way in which life presented itself to him. He was hereditarily endowed with much of the Quietist instinct he had not (on the surface, at least) questionings of heart and searchings of spirit. He was what can be called a lifephilosopher; that is to say, he was not for ever deducing a system from faith or experience, like some restless spirits, and modifying it from day to day; he was simply acting, when it became him to act, in the way that his pure high instincts led him, and growing wiser so. thus voluble or flashy talkers, keen, disputative, absorbed spirits, conversational dogmatists, found little to satisfy them in him: they were even apt to despise him in his greatness; and he too was uneasy in such society, he sported his door against them, he gave them no encouragementunless, indeed, he had been their father's friend; then everything was forgiven.

And

In his bedroom, which latterly became his sitting-room, he kept all the Irish pamphlets which he and his father had amassed-for he was of Irish descent. It was a very characteristic room-the walls were covered to the top

with bookcases, painted white, and gradually sloping away inwards as they descended, so that he could have the larger books at the top, and the smaller at the bottom. These were filled with grey and white and blue paper volumes, many unbound and dusty, tied up in masses with strings and paper of all colours; in one corner an immense heap standing high up on the floor. "I know they oughtn't to be here -they ought to be in the library," he would say, "but of course that has never been done." It was in this room, so he told us, that he used to be ceaselessly annoyed by a mouse, which began to perambulate about 2 A.M., night after night, for many weeks: night after night he would resolve, he said, to "humour it no longer " -but night after night he would at last get up and open the door for it to go into his other room, which it instantly did, returning by some secret way to renew its wanderings the next night. "There never was such a pampered mouse," he used to say.

The rooms all through were filled with little mementoes, of which he would sometimes give us the history, from the little pictures and ornaments on the ledges and chimney-pieces, to the incongruous-looking tea-set that he used, and that formed so integral a part of the picture in tête-à-tête talks with him-every single piece of which was a memorial of some one. In former

times he had a little toy, a model of the old Eton Long Chamber bedsteads that stood on his table. One evening a fantastic wild friend, who had been at Eton with him, was sitting with him a man who had been miserable, hounded and persecuted through the whole of his schoollife there—and, stung by a sudden thought, perhaps some barbarous association, seized this model with the tongs, and crushed it into the fire -the owner sate immovable till the holocaust was over, and then said gently, "Was that necessary? "

Nothing was more remarkable than the kind of men to be found in his rooms: any one engaged in arduous literary work of a nature involving special research we were sure to see there sooner or later. Many of the rising men in the University who knew greatness when they saw it-and not only these, but scapegraces to whom Bradshaw accorded an almost fatherly protection, "outsiders," so called, who for some venial social defect, some ungraciousness of manner, or want of refining influences, society in general had rigorously excluded-these were to be found expanding in his presence-and the strangest thing about these intimacies was a point to which many will bear testimony, that if they grew at all, they grew to include all the home circle of which his friend was a part. "All my brothers and sisters," said one who was much with him,

"unknown to him before he came to realise and love them all for themselves."

"I hardly ever

He was a wonderful instance of a man, unmethodical and dreamy by nature, made business-like by consideration for other people : his library-work was always exactly done. His own private work suffered by the rigorous selfsacrifice with which he devoted his time to the details of business: invitations and other social requirements did not come off so well. He was said frequently to neglect these. go out," he used to say, though it was not for want of being asked: but it so soon got to be understood that such was his habit, and he was so welcome when he did come, though he had not announced his intention of so doing, that the delinquencies were accepted in the spirit in which they had been committed. Indeed, so great was his dislike of being forced to a decision, that it is related of him that a friend who had written to ask him to dinner, on receiving no answer, sent him two postcards, with "Yes" written on one, "No" on the other, and by return of post received them both.

When one speaks of Bradshaw's "work," it is hard to make the uninitiated quite understand either its extent, its importance, or its perfection. He knew more about printed books than any man living-he could tell at a glance the date and country, generally the town, at which a book