deed, probably more real weight with moderate Conservatives than with extreme Liberals. Enterprise neither seemed to be nor was his forte, and bold men thought him rather tame. His influence was like that of Lord Palmerston: he was liked by the moderate members, whether Whigs or Tories, who think just alike, whatever they call themselves; and who are likely nowadays to rule the country, whatever name the party in power may chance to bear. He was a safe man, a fair man, and an unselfish man. He had a faculty of "patient labour," which, as he himself remarked, "was as sure to be appreciated when Englishmen meet together to transact business, as wit or eloquence;" and therefore it was that he had great influence in the House of Commons; therefore it was that he rose rapidly.

He filled three cabinet offices; the first was that of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and this was the one which he liked best, and for which he conceived himself best qualified. He had no easy time, however, during his actual tenure of the office. He had to find money for the Crimean war, the heaviest draft on the resources of the exchequer since Waterloo; he had to break the "fundamental law of the currency," as he called it, Peel's Act, in the unexpected panic of 1857. He gave universal satisfaction as finance minister, and especial satisfaction in the City. He was clear, considerate, and it was at once felt that argument would move him if good argument could be found. He had to borrow much money, and he so managed as to be able to borrow it without undue charge to the state, and with that immediate success which sustains the credit of the state, and secures a prestige in the money-market. It is scarcely possible to speak of him as finance minister without alluding to his differences with Mr. Gladstone in the cabinet and out of it. Yet it is not possible to discuss the subject accurately. Mr. Gladstone's views of the budget of 1860, we all know; but Sir G. Lewis's views have never been set forth at length, and it is not wise to base an argument on scraps of oral conversations. It may be as well, however, to point out that, in addition to their intrinsic and considerable differences of temperament and character, they approached finance from two different and even opposite points of view. Mr. Gladstone is the successor, the legitimate inheritor of the policy of Sir R. Peel. He made his reputation as a financier and as a statesman by the budget of 1853, in which the prominent object is to remove old taxes, that cramp and harass industry. He regards the public purse as donative, out of which trade may be augmented and industry developed. Sir R. Peel used the public purse in that manner, and Mr. Gladstone has done so also. Sir G. Lewis was led, perhaps from temperament, and certainly from circumstances, to take a

stricter and simpler view of finance. He came into office on a sudden, during a great war, and he had to find the resources for that war. He had to consider, not how taxation could be adjusted so as to help trade, but how the exchequer could be filled to pay soldiers. On all financial matters he looked solely at the balance of the account, Will there be a deficit, or will there not be? Forms of account, and all minor matters, were in his mind of very small importance; he looked to the simple question, How much will there be in the till at the end of the year? With two such different prepossessions as these, it is no wonder that men so intrinsically different as Sir G. Lewis and Mr. Gladstone did not very well agree upon finance; it is rather a wonder that they could act together at all. There is no use, over Sir G. Lewis's grave, in reviving financial controversies; every body will now admit that while he was in office and responsible he was a sound and sure Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the panic of 1857, we have heard, he was even amusing. His perfect impassivity and collectedness contrasted much with the excitement of eager men; and in a panic most men are eager. A deputation of Scotch bankers attended at the Treasury to ask Sir George to induce the Bank of England to make advances to them in certain possible cases. Sir George said, "Ah, gentlemen, if I were to interfere with the discretion of the Bank, there would be a run upon me much greater than any which there has ever been upon you." He was a man who probably could not lose his head.

At the Home Office he had the opportunity of displaying great judicial faculties. The Home Office is the high court of appeal in cases of criminal justice. When any one is to be hung, it is almost always argued before the Home Secretary that he should not be hung. If Sir George Lewis had practised at the bar, for which he studied, he would have been a bad advocate; his mind was not futile in ambiguous fallacies, and was incapable of artificial belief; and a great pleader should excel in these. One of the greatest judges of our generation, when at the bar, could only state the point once, and when the court did not understand him, could only mutter, "What fools they are! awful fools, infernal fools!" Sir George Lewis would not have indulged in these epithets, but he would have been nearly as little able to invent ingenious suggestions and out-of-the-way arguments. He probably would have said, "I have explained the matter. If the court will not comprehend it, I cannot make them." But no man was fitter for a judge than himself. He would never have shirked labour,-which is not unknown even among judges,-and his lucid exposition of substantial reasons would have been consulted by students for years. At the Home

Office he could not display all these qualities, but he was able to display some of them.

At the War Office he shone far less. It did not suit his previous pursuits; and no other man with such pursuits would have taken it, or, indeed, would have been asked to take it. He pushed in this case too far the notion that an able and educated man can master any subject, and is fit for any office. The constitutional habit in England of making a civilian supreme over military matters, though we believe a most wise habit, has its objections, and may easily look absurd. It did look rather absurd when the most pacific of the pacific, the most erudite of the erudite, Sir George Lewis, was placed at the head of the War Department. In great matters, it cannot be denied, he did well. When the capture of the Trent made a war with the Federal States a pressing probability, the arrangements were admitted to be admirable. Much of the credit must belong in such a case to military and other subordinates, all the details must be managed by them; but the superior minister must have his credit too. He brought to a focus all which was done; he summed-up the whole; he could say distinctly why every thing which was done was done, and why every thing left undone was left undone. He would have been ready with a plain intelligible reason on all these matters in Parliament and elsewhere. And this was not an easy matter for a civilian after a few months of office. But on minor matters Sir George Lewis was not so good at the War Department as at the Exchequer or the Home Office. He had been apprenticed to the Home Office as Under-Secretary, and to the Exchequer as Financial Secretary to the Treasury; but he had never been apprenticed to the War Office. On matters of detail he was obliged to rely on others. He held, and justly, that a parliamentary chief of temporary, perhaps very temporary, tenure of office should be very cautious not to interfere too much with the minor business of his department. He should govern, but he should govern through others. But the due application of this maxim requires that the chief minister should know, as it were by intuition and instinct, which points are important and which are not important. And no civilian introduced at once to a new department like that of War can at once tell this. He must be in the hands of others. In the House of Commons, too, Sir G. C. Lewis could never answer questions of detail on war matters in an offhand manner. He had to say, "I will inquire, and inform the honourable member." At the Home Office he could have answered at once and of himself. It was an act of self-denial in him to go to the War Office. He felt himself out of place there, and was sure that

his administration of military matters could not add to his reputation. But he was told it was for the interest of the Government that he should accept the office, and he accepted it. Perhaps he was wrong. The reputation of a first-rate public man is a great public power, and he should be careful not to diminish it. The weight of the greatest men is diminished by their being seen to do daily that which they do not do particularly well. A cold and cynical wisdom particularly disapproves of most men's best actions. Few men were less exposed to the censure of such wisdom than Sir G. C. Lewis; but his acceptance of the War Office was a sacrifice of himself to the public, which injured him more than it advantaged the public,-which it would be better not to have made.

The usefulness of men like Sir George Lewis is not to be measured by their usefulness in mere office. It is in the cabinet that they are of most use. Sir George Lewis was made to discuss business with other men. 66 If," we have heard one who did much business with him say,-"if there is any fault in what you say, he will find it out." In council, in the practical discussions of pending questions, a simple masculine intellect like that of Sir G. C. Lewis finds its greatest pleasure and its best use. He was made to be a cabinet minister.

The briefest notice of Sir George Lewis should not omit to mention one of the most agreeable, and not one of his least rare, peculiarities-his good-natured use of great knowledge. It would have been easy for a man with such a memory as his, and such studious habits as his, to become most unpopular by cutting-up the casual blunders of others. On the contrary, he was a most popular man; for he used his knowledge with a view to amend the ignorance of others, and not with a view to expose it. His conversation was superior either to his speeches or his writings. It had-what is perhaps rarer among parliamentary statesmen than among most people-the flavour of exact thought. It is hardly possible for men to pass their lives in oratorical efforts without losing some part of the taste for close-fitting words. Well-sounding words which are not specially apt, which are not very precise, are as good or better for a popular assembly. Sir George Lewis's words in political conversation were as good as words could be; they might have gone to the press at once. We have compared it to hearing a chapter in Aristotle's Politics, and perhaps that may give an idea that it was dull. But pointed thought on great matters is a very pleasant thing to hear, though, after many ages and changes, it is sometimes a hard thing to read. The conversation of the Dialogue at the head of this Article has been admired, but it is very inferior to the conversation of the writer. There was a delicate flavour of

satire lurking in the precise thought which could not be written down, and which is now gone and irrecoverable.

"When," says Lord Brougham, commenting on the death of a statesman once celebrated and now forgotten,-" when a subject presented itself so large and shapeless, and dry and thorny, that few men's fortitude could face, and no one's patience could grapple with it; or an emergency occurred demanding on the sudden access to stores of learning, the collection of many long years, but arranged so as to be made available at the shortest notice, then it was men asked where Lawrence was." And now, not only when information is wanted, but when counsel is needed,-when parties are confused,-when few public men are trusted,-when wisdom, always rare, is rarer even than usual,—many may ask, in no long time," Where is Lewis now ?"

ART. XI.-M. RENAN'S LIFE OF JESUS.

Vie de Jésus. Par Ernest Renan, Membre de l'Institut. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1863.

EVERY attempt to re-write the "Life of Jesus" implies an opinion that the four Evangelists have not been finally successful in their task. Had there been only one gospel, the grand figure which it presents might for ages have left a satisfying image on the mind. But when the simplicity of the impression is broken, when the outline appears in parts double or treble, and the movements separate on different lines, when tones of incompatible colouring are laid on, the eye instinctively endeavours to clear the confusion; first, by suspecting itself, and correcting its own point of view; and, failing this, by criticising the representations themselves, and discharging the touches least true to nature. As early therefore as the second century, Tatian's Diatessaron redisposed the four gospels into one, and began the long and not very harmonious procession of "Harmonies." Their method consists simply in a mechanical rearrangement of parts, a cutting-up of four threads into convenient lengths, to re-tie them in an order which omits nothing but the duplicates. The task may be achieved with more or less skill: the pieces may be too long or too short: the joints may be neat or clumsy: the geographical windings may be excessive: the time-measure may be open to dispute. But you are to criticise nothing except the manipulation: you are to assume that the material is all right, and, like a dissected map, admits of being put together as a whole, when the rule of combination has been found. The result is not encouraging. So