SIR CHARLES LYELL. 603 



instead of the coarser class into whose hands the reins of government have been 

 placed. But these men and the majority of capitalists would, I am sure, have 

 knocked under to the South, and the slave-owner would have made a com- 

 promise by which his institution would have been more rampant than ever. If 

 slavery, which was more injurious to the white man than to the negro, and 

 which to a certain extent poisoned the political institutions of the North, . . . 

 is got rid of, it will be owing to a very extended suffrage among a class which 

 has had much instruction, for working-men, but to whom the aristocracy of 

 wealth and refinement were not prepared to make great sacrifices for such an 

 object. 



In a man of Lyell's antecedents and position, such reasoning is 

 both brave and unexpected. I regret to say he observes in the same 

 letter that he would rather fight for any number of years than let 

 Ireland be " independent," though he admits that the Irish might 

 make out a fair case for "repeal." Like most English Liberals, he 

 can be just and sympathetic to Venetians, Poles, Hungarians, and 

 negroes, but can not go quite so low as Irishmen. 



So much by anticipation. A life like this is so full of real triumphs 

 that one almost forgets to mention such a small matter as that in 

 1848, when at Kinnordy, " he rode over the hills by Clova and Loch- 

 na-gar to Balmoral, when he had the honor of being knighted by the 

 Queen." He w r as Englishman enough to appreciate the distinction, 

 as well as the baronetcy which followed it later on. Nor was he in- 

 sensible to the blandishments of royalty : he records the doings of 

 little princes and princesses, when he happens to meet them, a trifle 

 too much in the style of the special correspondent, and he details his 

 conversations with a distinguished personage somewhat more fully 

 than their intrinsic nature really demands. But there is not much of 

 this sort of thing : as a rule, when he mentions a man, it is because 

 the man is worth mentioning. The life in London during the years 

 of full maturity is even richer in reminiscences of famous people than 

 the earlier days. Dining at Hallam's, the great subject of conversa- 

 tion is the vacant editorship of the " Edinburgh " Longman closeted 

 for hours with Macaulay, and Jeffrey strongly opposed to letting the 

 control go from Auld Reekie. Breakfasting at Rogers's, the veteran 

 poet tells him how he knew a boatman who used to ferry Mr. Alexan- 

 der Pope across the river at Twickenham, how Chantrey once came 

 to his house as a workman, at five shillings a day, to receive orders for 

 some ornamental drawing-room furniture, and how he still possessed 

 the identical table at which Addison wrote his " Spectator " papers. 

 Now it is " Ruskin, who was secretary of our Geological Section " ; 

 now it is " a friend of mine, Huxley, who will soon take rank as one of 

 the first naturalists we have ever produced " ; and now it is " young 

 Geikie, . . . certainly the coming geologist and writer." His eye for 

 men was very keen, and his predictions have almost always turned out 

 to be correct. Of Agassiz, just settling in Boston, he says : " He will 



