SKETCH OF WALTER BAGEHOT. 489 



SKETCH OF WALTER BAGEHOT. 



~TT7~ ALTER BAGEHOT was born February, 1826, in the west 

 W of England, where his father, who survives him, was a lead- 

 ing partner in an old-established bank. A student in the University 

 ofLondon, he took the mathematical scholarship with his Bachelor's 

 degree in 1846, and the gold medal in intellectual and moral philos- 

 ophy with his Master's degree in 1848. He then studied law at Lin- 

 coln's Inn, and was called to the bar ; he thoroughly liked but never 

 practised this profession, being induced to abandon it by consider- 

 ations of his health. Always delicate, the excessive work by which 

 alone the position of a successful barrister can be won and maintained 

 would doubtless have shortened the already too-brief life. 



He early developed remarkable talent, but in his youth philosophy, 

 poetry, and theology, had a larger share of his attention than the nar- 

 rower and more prosaic studies which occupied him later, and upon 

 which his fame will rest. In deciding, as he wisely did, to join his 

 father in business, he was conscious of defects which might hinder 

 his career as a banker and merchant. He was absent-minded about 

 minutiae, inattentive to trifles he used to declare that he could never 

 " add up," and habitual inaccuracies marked his mathematical exer- 

 cises in college. He proved, however, to be very successful in busi- 

 ness, and was gratified with this success won in practical pursuits, in 

 spite of the metaphysical and poetic tendency which at one time 

 earned for him the reputation of a dreamer. He somewhere says : 

 " The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you can't do. 

 Why did Mr. Disraeli take the duties of Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 with so much relish ? Because people said he was a novelist an ad 

 captandum man who could not add up. No doubt it pleased his 

 inmost soul to do the work of red-tape people better than those who 

 could do nothing else." 



He was always busy with his pen. During the early part of his 

 life he wrote for the National Hevieio, the Inquirer, and other peri- 

 odicals, and proved himself to be a brilliant and able critic in various 

 departments finance, politics, and literature. His first book, called 

 " Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen," published twenty 

 years ago, and now long out of print, was a very remarkable volume 

 of essays, that for some reason, perhaps the unfortunate title, failed 

 to receive the attention it deserved. 



In 1858 Bagehot married the eldest daughter of James Wilson, 

 proprietor of the Economist. The marriage was a happy one, and led 

 to the production of his most popular and original books; it brought 

 him into connection with the higher world of politics ; and eventually, 

 on the death of his father-in-law, to the ownership and editorial con- 

 trol of the Economist, which paper he carried to the position of great 

 power which it now has. 



