a showy rhetorician, and not having at all read Adam Smith, think of him as a dry and dull political economist. But the saying is true, nevertheless. Macaulay is anything but a mere rhetorical writer-there is a very hard kernel of business in him ; and Adam Smith is not dry at all-the objection to him is that he is not enough so, and that the real truth in several parts of his subject cannot be made so interesting as his mode of treatment implies. And there is this fundamental likeness between Macaulay and Adam Smith, that they can both describe practical matters in such a way as to fasten them on the imagination, and not only get what they say read, but get it remembered and make it part of the substance of the reader's mind ever afterwards. Abstract theorists may say that such a style as that of Adam Smith is not suitable to an abstract science; but then Adam Smith has carried political economy far beyond the bounds of those who care for abstract science, or who understand exactly what it means. He has popularised it in the only sense in which it can be popularised without being spoiled; that is, he has put certain broad conclusions into the minds of hard-headed men, which are all which they need know, and all which they for the most part will ever care for, and he has put those conclusions there ineradicably. This, too, is what Macaulay does for us in history, at least what he does best; he engraves indelibly the main outlines and the rough common sense of the matter. Other more refining, and perhaps in some respects more delicate, minds may add the nicer details, and explain those wavering, flickering, inconstant facts of human nature which are either above common sense or below it. Both these great Scotchmen excelled in the 'osteology of their subject,' a term invented by Dr. Chalmers, a third great Scotchman who excelled in it himself; perhaps, indeed, it is an idiosyncrasy of their race.

Like many other great Scotchmen-Macaulay is one of them-Adam Smith was so much repelled by the dominant Calvinism in which he was born, that he never voluntarily wrote

of religious subjects, nor, as far as we know spoke of them. Nothing, indeed, can repel a man more from such things than what Macaulay called the 'bray of Exeter Hall.' What can be worse for people than to hear in their youth arguments, alike clamorous and endless, founded on ignorant interpretations of inconclusive words? As soon as they come to years of discretion, all instructed persons cease to take part in such discussions, and often say nothing at all on the great problems of human life and destiny. Sometimes the effect goes farther; those subjected to this training become not only silent but careless. There is nothing like Calvinism for generating indifference. The saying goes that Scotchmen are those who believe most or least; and it is most natural that it should be so, for they have been so hurt and pestered with religious stimulants, that it is natural they should find total abstinence from them both pleasant and healthy. How far this indifference went in Adam Smith's case we do not exactly know; but there is reason to think it extended to all religion. On the contrary, there are many traces of the complacent optimism of the eighteenth century—a doctrine the more agreeable to him perhaps, because it is the exact opposite of Calvinism-and one which was very popular in an easy-going age, though the storms and calamities of a later time dispelled it, and have made it seem to us thin and unreal. The only occasion when Adam Smith ever came near to theological discussion was in a letter on Hume's death, in which he said that Hume, one of his oldest friends, was the best man he had ever known-praise which perhaps was scarcely meant to be taken too literally, but which naturally caused a great storm. The obvious thing to say about it is, that it does not indicate any very lofty moral standard, for there certainly was no sublime excellence in Hume, who, as Carlyle long ago said, 'all his life through did not so much morally live, as critically investigate.' But though the bigots of his time misunderstood him, Adam Smith did not by so saying mean to identify himself with irreligion or even with scepticism.

Adam Smith's life, however, was not like Macaulay's 'a life without a lady.' There are vestiges of an early love affair, though but vague ones. Dugald Stewart, an estimable man in his way, but one of the most detestable of biographers, for he seems always thinking much more of his own words than of the facts he has to relate, says: In the early part of Mr. Smith's life, it is well known to his friends that he was for several years attached to a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment.' But he does not tell us who she was, and has not been able to learn how far his addresses were favourably received,' or, in fact, anything about the matter. It seems, however, that the lady died unmarried, and in that case the unsentimental French novelists say that the gentleman is not often continuously in earnest, for that a lady cannot be always saying No!' But whether such was the case with Adam Smith or not, we cannot tell. He was a lonely bookish man, but that may tell both ways. The books may be opposed to the lady, but the solitude will preserve her remembrance.

If Adam Smith did abandon sentiment and devote himself to study, he has at least the excuse of having succeeded. Scarcely any writer's work has had so much visible fruit. He has, at least, annexed his name to a great practical movement which is still in progress through the world. Free trade has become in the popular mind almost as much his subject as the war of Troy was Homer's: only curious inquirers think of teachers before the one any more than of poets before the other. If all the speeches made at our Anti-Corn Law League were examined, I doubt if any reference could be found to any preceding writer, though the name of Adam Smith was always on men's lips. And in other countries it is the same. Smith-ism is a name of reproach with all who reject such doctrines, and of respect with those who believe them; no other name is used equally or comparably by either. So long as the doctrines of protection exist-and they seem likely to do so, as human interests are what they are and human nature is what it is—

Adam Smith will always be quoted as the great authority of Anti-Protectionism-as the man who first told the world the truth so that the world could learn and believe it.

And besides this great practical movement, Adam Smith started a great theoretical one also. On one side his teaching created Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, on another it rendered possible Ricardo and Mr. Mill. He is the founder of that analysis of the 'great commerce' which in England we now call political economy, and which, dry, imperfect, and unfinished ast it is, will be thought by posterity one of the most valuable and peculiar creations of English thought. As far as accuracy goes, Ricardo no doubt began this science; but his whole train of thought was suggested by Adam Smith, and he could not have written without him. So much theory and so much practice have really, perhaps never, sprung from a single mind.

Fortunate in many things, Adam Smith was above all things fortunate in his age. Commerce had become far larger, far more striking, far more world-wide than it ever was before, and it needed an effectual explainer. A vigorous Scotchman, with the hard-headedness and the abstractions of his country, trained in England and familiar with France, was the species of man best fitted to explain it, and such a man was Adam Smith.

LORD ALTHORP AND THE REFORM ACT OF 1832.1

[1877.]

· ALTHORP carried the Bill,' such is the tradition of our fathers: 'the Bill,' of course, being the Bill to them-the great Reform Act of 1832, which was like a little revolution in that generation-which really changed so much, and which seemed to change so much more. To have been mainly concerned in passing so great a measure seems to many of the survivors of that generation, who remember the struggles of their youth and recall the enthusiasm of that time, almost the acme of fame. And in sober history such men will always be respectfully and gravely mentioned, but all romance has died away. The Bill is to us hardly more than other Bills; it is one of a great many Acts of Parliament which in this day, partly for good and partly for evil, have altered the ever-varying constitution of England. The special charm, the charm which to the last you may see that Macaulay always felt about it, is all gone. The very history of it is forgotten. Which of the younger generation can say what was General Gascoigne's amendment, or who were the waverers,' or even how many Reform 'Bills' in those years there were? The events for which one generation cares most, are often those of which the next knows least. They are too old to be matters of personal recollection, and they are too new to be subjects of study: they have passed out of memory, and they have not got into the books. Of the wellinformed young people about us, there are very many who scarcely know who Lord Althorp was.

Memoir of John Charles, Viscount Althorp, third Earl Spencer. By the late Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1876.