SIR CHARLES LYELL. 513 



again and carried forward his history of the English Eevohition ; he 

 composed and issued several volumes of Memoirs relating to his own 

 time ; he collected and edited his parliamentary speeches ; and he pub- 

 lished or republished other writings, — among them, some volumes of 

 Meditations on the Christian religion. His political sceptre was broken ; 

 but in the elect circlQ of the French Academy (of which since 183G he 

 had been a member) he found room to exert the controlling will that 

 the changing fortunes of eighty years had not been able to break ; and 

 in the Protestant Consistory he led with characteristic energy the 

 opposition to the latitudinarian tendencies of the day. 



Guizot's last years were spent mostly in his country home at Val 

 Richer in patriarchal and dignified simplicity. The traits of his 

 character shone in the light of old age. One of his last interests was 

 *' the paternal pleasure of relating the history of France," as he said, 

 " to my grandchildren," — with no view, however, to publication. 

 This narrative he lived to carry a great deal lower than the period 

 covered by his lectures on the history of Civilization in France. 

 When publication was asked and granted, he took formal occasion to 

 affirm his historical creed by emphasizing what he deemed the two 

 factors of all history : " L'histoire a des lois qui lui viennent de plus 

 Iiaut ; mais les hommes sont, dans l'histoire, des etres actifs et libres, 

 qui y produisent des resultats et exercent une influence dont ils sont 

 responsables." 



SIR CHAELES LYELL. 



Fortunate alike in his genius and his circumstances, Sir Chakles 

 Lyell was one of the few eminent cultivators of modern science who 

 had not lived to see in his old age the work of his youth and his prime 

 superseded or surpassed in the rapid advance in the knowledge of 

 nature that distinguishes our time. Entering on his career at a period 

 when every thing was prepared for the impulse of a master-mind, he 

 determined that movement of progress in geology which is one of the 

 greatest achievements of our century ; and throughout a long life he 

 maintained that position of direction and command to which his 

 superior sagacity guided him at an early age, and which his superior 

 ability secured. The influence of Bacon's teaching, which related 

 rather, or more directly in effect, to the social and religious standing 

 or respectability of scientific pursuits and theories, than to any real 

 guidance in scientific method, had pi'epared the world, and especially 

 the English-speaking world, for that consideration of heterodox views, 

 and that toleration of novelties in science, with which the last century 

 VOL. X. (k. s. II.) 33 



