xxviii OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



I may sum up the impression which Mr. Lea's intellectual char- 

 acter and attitude leave upon his readers and left most of all upon 

 those who knew him personally, by saying that he loved truth with 

 a whole-hearted devotion. The love of truth is the compass by 

 which an historian must steer. It is the highest quality in the in- 

 vestigator, whether his subject be human things or external nature. 

 It was his love of truth that made him so diligent and exact and 

 scrupulous in the study of his authorities and in the statement of 

 his results. It is this quality above all that distinguishes men like 

 Hallam and Stubbs, Maitland and Gardiner, and in this country men 

 like Parkman and your latest historian of the United States, Mr. 

 James Ford Rhodes, from the mere litterateur, however brilliant a 

 stylist he may be, who occupies himself with history because it is a 

 subject which lends itself to literary effect. And I may perhaps 

 add that we in England feel doubly grateful to the United States 

 when she gives us an historian who makes to European history con- 

 tributions of permanent value. In observing the widespread and 

 eager activity with which, in this country, your younger students 

 are devoting themselves to the history of the thirteen colonies and 

 of the United States in all its ramifications, I have sometimes been 

 inclined to wish that more of them occupied themselves with the 

 history of Europe, which, after all, is a part of your own history, 

 because you are yourselves a European people, although settled in 

 another hemisphere. Mr. Lea is a bright example of the services 

 which an American historian, standing outside the strifes and preju- 

 dices that still affect the minds of many European writers, can ren- 

 der to branches of history which eminently require calm and dispas- 

 sionate investigation. 



The vision rises before me of our venerable friend as I used to 

 see him sitting in his library, surrounded by books that rose from 

 the floor to the ceiling — rows of precious volumes which he had 

 gathered with such painstaking diligence — happy among them, gentle 

 and serene in aspect, and pursuing his labors in an old age which 

 had left him in full possession of his admirable ]:)owers, wise and 

 just, zealous and vmtiring as ever in the pursuit of truth. He 

 thought nothing of fame. He did not seek for recognition either at 

 home or abroad, and the circle from which he received recognition 



